An ice fall doctor crossing a crevasse on a ladder at Khumbu Ice Fall, Everest. © BBC
Visit extreme locales — from the highest mountain to the greatest canyon — and learn how these places test their inhabitants to the limit. On Mount Everest, a Sherpa has to rope a route across the notorious Khumbu Icefall in time for the hundreds of foreign mountaineers who will arrive for climbing season. In the Grand Canyon, conservationists desperately try to ensure the survival of one of America’s few surviving condor chicks. And, on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, farmers fight pitched battles with elephants in the dead of night.
About the Program
The Earth’s Natural Wonders series tells the stories of some of our planet’s most spectacular places and how they have shaped the lives of those who live there. Across the world there are a handful of breath-taking sights — Mount Everest, the Grand Canyon, the Amazon rainforest – and while these natural wonders are awe-inspiring, they do not stand in splendid isolation. People and animals live in these places, and each wonder has shaped their existence in fundamental ways.Many of Earth’s natural wonders are among the world’s most inhospitable environments and so present unique challenges for their inhabitants. See how the people who live in some of our natural wonders overcome those challenges – and the ingenuity and bravery needed to make a living here.The Earth’s Natural Wonders team filmed on six continents and in 12 languages so that local contributors could tell their stories in their own words. Using the latest scientific knowledge and state-of-the-art computer graphics, the Earth’s Natural Wonders series also explores how many of these Wonders were created — and the forces that are still at work, making the wonders what they are today.Earth's Natural Wonders was produced by BBC and PBS.