Adventurous First-Ascent Makes For Award Winning Film

In August of 2013, a unique first-ascent climbing expedition set out to conquer what is disputed to be the highest peak in Southeast Asia, the nearly 20,000 foot Gamlang Razi. Along for the trip were Mark Fisher and Eric Daft of Idaho based Fisher Creative, longtime friends of and collaborators with TGR.

The outcome of creative media guys going on a crazy adventure in the jungle and mountains of Myanmar? An amazing film documenting the trip and everything along the way.

Myanmar Bridges to Change dropped on iTunes last Friday, following award-wining success at film festivals around the world, including Grand Prize at the New Zealand Mountain Film Festival and a finalist spot in the Banff Mountain Film Festival.

The alpine on the way to the top of Gamlang Razi. Fisher Creative photo. 

The expedition, which was set up by a good friend of Fisher’s, was going to happen with or without a film being produced.

“The film came second, the trip was happening regardless,” Fisher said. “It was just a really rare opportunity to make a really unique film about exploration, adventure and climbing.”

You might wonder what is so unique about climbing a mountain in the Himalayas. Well, for one, the trek to base camp was 175 miles through the jungle.

Additionally, the expedition was the first group of westerners in about 20 years to really explore the area and there wasn’t really any information from past expeditions for them to reference.

“We sort of just went into this expedition with the hope that we would make it there and there would be a route we could actually climb,” Fisher said. “That element makes it exciting, because you just don’t know, you’re sort of on an old-school adventure.”

“Most of the time when people go on expeditions there’s a clearly defined route or they have pretty good information," he said. "They can talk to other teams who have been in the area. For us it really was an unknown. All we had was a handful of Google Earth images.”

Stoked on the climb. Fisher Creative photo. 

The jungle was the longest part of the journey, taking three weeks to arrive at base camp. Only a week was spent in the high alpine and the first-ascent of Gamlang Razi took all of one day. On the return journey, the team conquered the jungle in two weeks, topping off the six week expedition. 

On the trek through the jungle, the team encountered and persevered through the elements, which at the heart of monsoon season, would have made most average people turn back.

“The biggest hurdle was the jungle, the environment.” Fisher said. “I’m not saying that to be dramatic, I’m just saying that to be realistic. You sort of have this idea in your mind of what it’s going to be like. Then you actually get into the heart of the monsoon season. It rained every day for a large portion of the day. There were insects, bugs, snakes, it was just a beatdown.”

Myanmar was very closed off from the rest of the world until 2011, when its military rule was dissolved and democracy began to take hold.

“It’s this unknown, unexplored place. Nobody had been there for almost 20 years. We were that first wave of exploration and change," Fisher said. "What becomes of this country and area in Myanmar with more people being able to go in there as things progress and develop will be interesting to see.”

A Burmese fisherman encountered in the jungle. Fisher Creative photo. 

Since the 2013 expedition that Fisher was part of, a handful of others have followed, including a National Geographic team that didn’t make it to the summit, a testament to the difficulty of the venture.

Fisher estimated that they crossed at least 100 suspension bridges while in the jungle, which provided a nice metaphor for naming the film, as well as an ongoing joke about counting the bridges along the way (nobody did).

“As a climbing team we were also a conduit for change. It was a joint Burmese-American expedition. Part of the expedition was a cultural exchange change of sorts,” Fisher said. “We were sort of training and mentoring these climbers from the Technical Climbing Club of Myanmar. So that was part of the change too, opening up mountaineering to a larger scale to Burmese folks.” 

One of many suspension bridges crossed on the journey to Gamlang Razi. Fisher Creative photo.