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Fifty Hours at the Bottom of the World: MrBeast's Crew Camps in Antarctica

MrBeast ミスタービースト · ▶ 12:09 · 8 min read
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Overview

In this video, Jimmy (MrBeast) and his friends Nolan, Karl, Chandler, Dream, Sapnap, and George are dropped off by plane in Antarctica. They have to last 50 hours before a plane comes back for them. Jimmy calls the location "the coldest place on Earth" and the "bottom of the globe." Once the plane takes off, he stresses that there is "no way out for the next 50 hours." The video follows the group through three phases: building a camp that can survive the weather, getting through the basics of daily life in extreme cold, and a split on the second day, when Jimmy climbs an unnamed mountain while the others secretly dig an enormous hole.

8 min read
0:23

Arrival and an Immediate Blizzard

The first job, Jimmy explains, is to trek toward the mountains for protection from the wind. One of the group calls it "the most beautiful place I've ever seen," but the weather turns almost at once. Someone points out that a blizzard is already coming in, and the group jokes about the odds of it arriving just as they land. They choose a spot at the base of a mountain, chant "Antarctica!", and Jimmy names the site "Camp Beast."

Jimmy gives the temperature as negative 30 degrees, and the wind is already a real problem. One person's tent nearly blows away while the group is still putting the shelters up. Pitching the tents is messy. They try to follow a tutorial that said to go "at an angle," someone says they have it "all wrong," and snow gets into someone's sleeve. Even so, the tents eventually go up, and one onlooker admits they are "actually making progress."

The Ice Wall

Jimmy describes wind blowing tents away as a common problem in Antarctica. The fix is to cut blocks from the snow and ice and stack them into a wall around the camp. While they work, he reports that the temperature has "dropped 20 degrees since we got here," which pushes them to build faster. One of the crew calls it "by far the hardest thing we've ever done." When the wall is finished, Jimmy declares the camp complete and says he hopes the wind will no longer take the tents.

1:49

Constant Daylight, MREs, and Sleep

Jimmy singles out one difficulty in particular: the sun never sets, so you can't tell when it is night. One person says their stomach is the clock, and it says dinner time. Dinner is MREs. Jimmy shows how it works: boil water, pour it carefully into the pouch, and wait about ten minutes. One crew member finds the setup awful, and another says it tastes very good.

The group divides into two tents. Jimmy shares with Nolan and Dream, and Karl shares with Chandler, Sapnap, and George. Jimmy says he is exhausted and feels sick, and he notes that Antarctica is a bad place to get sick. Around the same time, members of the other tent reveal to the camera that they have started digging a tunnel without Jimmy knowing. Dream tells Jimmy they don't think they'll make it the full 50 hours. As the wind picks up, Jimmy expects a hard night's sleep, and looking back he calls the first night "rough" because of the constant sunlight.

Morning One: Clothing and Frostbite

The next morning, Jimmy says he can't tell whether it's time to get up, since the sun is always out. Another crew member calls the morning "miserable," and someone says they are sick and woke up coughing blood.

Jimmy then lists what you have to wear before stepping outside: long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a second and third pair of pants, a jacket, "a jacket for your jacket," a ski mask, gloves, "gloves for your gloves," more gloves, and goggles "so your eyeballs don't freeze." He adds that even with all of it on, he can still get frostbite.

3:06

Bathroom Rules

Jimmy names two important things to deal with on day two. The first is urine. He explains that you might assume you can just pee in the snow, but you can't. Everyone has to pee into bottles and keep them until the end of the video. At negative 20 degrees, Jimmy manages it after about five minutes of trying.

The second is that several of the group need to poop, so they set up a separate toilet tent away from camp. Jimmy calls the random blizzards the worst part of Antarctica, saying they make your skin start to freeze. A blizzard hits while they're putting up the toilet tent, and they struggle to hold it down before it finally stays put. The toilet is a bucket inside. Nolan calls the experience "the worst experience in my life."

4:20

The Unnamed Mountain

Jimmy points to a nearby mountain that he says has no name yet, and he states that whoever climbs a mountain gets to name it. Most of the group comes up with excuses: they need to grab something from their tent, or the weather is bad. The last one left gets drafted, because Jimmy needs someone tied to him in case he falls. The climbers are Jimmy, Nolan, and this third person.

Before they even reach the mountain, they have to cross what Jimmy calls "a sea of ice." It is slippery, and Jimmy claims fewer than ten people have ever stood there. On the climb itself, one of them describes a drop to the right and says a fall backward would mean rolling 2,000 feet. Jimmy and Nolan agree that falling off one cliff section would kill them. They mark 30 hours during the ascent. From high up, Jimmy points out their base camp as a few tiny specks and says the landscape feels like another planet.

The climb takes about four and a half hours by Jimmy's count. Near the top, one climber calls it the most terrifying experience of their life and asks Jimmy to build an elevator next time. At the summit, Jimmy names the peak after the video's sponsor. Because nothing can be left behind, he also takes down the flag they carried up, which annoys the person who carried it.

Operation Hole

While the climbers are away, the people at camp focus on what they call "Operation Hole." One of them says they have been digging for "20-something hours." They joke that they could have built more wall, tidied the climbers' tents, or cooked them meals, "but instead, we dug this hole," which they call "the best use of our time possible." At one point someone digging deep inside asks how they're supposed to get back out.

When Jimmy radios Karl from the summit, Karl says he needs a second to "get outside of the hole." Jimmy asks what hole, and Karl claims he said "the whole tent." Seen from camp, the climbers look like "three little ants." Jimmy estimates base camp is over 10 miles from the peak.

8:41

Returning at 4 a.m.

The climbers get back to camp at 4 a.m. Jimmy says it may have been the hardest thing he has ever done, and another climber calls it the hardest and most rewarding. Jimmy doesn't hear Karl and wonders why everyone is quiet, then finds the others waiting in the hole, which they say is about eight feet deep. Jimmy is confused and asks why they dug it. They answer that they were just trying to make use of their time. Jimmy says he is too tired to make sense of it, but joins them after the chanting starts, and eventually calls it "actually a convenient hole."

Inside, Jimmy shows the group an iPad with the next two MrBeast videos and lets them pick. They choose "Blind Man Sees for the First Time" over "I Ate the World's Largest Burger" and react positively. It is cold enough that a camera screen goes black. Then everyone goes to bed.

10:15

Day Three: Packing Up and Leaving No Trace

Jimmy says the climb wore him out, and after getting back at 4 a.m. it was nearly impossible to get up on day three. The others push him to hurry. If they miss the flight, they'll be stuck for about another day. One person claims that Jimmy's group will miss it but they themselves won't.

Jimmy says preserving Antarctica's untouched beauty is extremely important and that no trace of the camp can remain, so he has everyone put things back the way they found them. They chant "Leave nothing behind." Because everyone is exhausted, the work goes slowly. There is a mishap while taking down a tent, and the ice wall comes down. Then they fill in the hole with a mock salute and a farewell. One person jokes that there is now "a hole in my heart."

At the pace they're walking, someone expects to reach the ice runway just before the plane lands. They see the plane, and Jimmy tells the group he is proud of them for surviving 50 hours in Antarctica. He thanks ALE and EYOS for making the trip possible, and the video ends with the crew chanting "home" as they leave.

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