CLIMBER BLOG: Travis Miller

Why I joined SOTSK

I was recruited by Shannon who I’d worked with before on a music concert. I was brought on at first to start documenting everything as well as shoot and edit viral videos to engage social media. I started last July then was laid off when the dates pushed then brought back on in September.

My main role became managing all of the tech equipment, compiling and uploading photos from the climb to website. HP was generous and hooked us up with laptops for our climbers and production staff. We had to outfit them for the altitude and make sure they were protected from the elements. All of the climbers got digital Canon cameras as well to document the climb through their eyes.

Each day I’d climb then go straight to the media tent when we got to camp to set everything up: tables, chairs, generators, computers, battery charging stations for cameras and BlackBerries, as well as laptops for any climbers that wanted to write blog posts. We’d grab a different camera each day from one of the climbers and that’s what ended up on the site in addition to Jimmy Chin’s & Michael Muller’s photos…20-100 photos a day. The quality of our photos are top notch thanks to Jimmy & Michael as well as the creativity of the climbers. A couple of the nights ended up going really late, with us working long after everyone else had gone to sleep because we spent a lot of time selecting the best photos then uploading everything via satellite. 

My main takeaway is that three days in, I didn’t know if I was going to survive working and hiking 14 hour days. But the incredible atmosphere of teamwork of the climbers combined with being out in the fresh air and the fact it’s important to get this word out, made it possible to push through all the technical difficulties. I’d never done anything like it and really enjoyed climbing and learning how to work in a mobile production environment.

- Travis Miller