ON A SINGLE day in 1996, eight people died on Mount Everest. Filmmaker and climber David Breashears — on the mountain with a group of climbers and crew to make an Imax film about their expedition — put down his camera to take part in the rescue efforts. As a result, one rarely finds an article written about Breashears that doesn’t mention that tragic day.

But Everest isn’t the only mountain on Breashears’s lengthy climbing rŽsumŽ. Never one to rest on his laurels — never one to rest, period — Breashears most recently set his sights and his camera on Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point in Africa. Along with a diverse group of trekkers — among them a 12-year-old Massachusetts girl, a 64-year-old historian, and a 23-year-old model — Breashears climbed the largest freestanding mountain in the world. And then he did what he’s best known for: he made a film about it. Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa opens at the Museum of Science, in Boston, on March 16.

Q: Why Kilimanjaro? Was it chosen by David Breashears the climber or David Breashears the filmmaker?

A: It would have to be both. As a climber, I find it a much more interesting mountain than Everest, and I also find it much more interesting as a filmmaker. As a storyteller, I thought that hearing the stories of ordinary people experiencing the biggest climb of their lives, which doesn’t have to be Everest, that that has a very broad appeal. It appeals to a much broader audience. I’m sitting here in the room right now with Robert Schauer — who was a cinematographer on the project, who’s climbed Everest twice — and like everyone, Kilimanjaro existed as a name to him, and a place, a snowcapped volcano on the equator, but he walked away transfixed. He said, "I never expected this mountain to have such appeal." So as a filmmaker, the mountain has name recognition; it holds a fascination for people; and yet even probably for you, you can’t tell me a lot about it. So as long as we have this giant-screen medium, we need big subjects, subjects that can fill that screen, and Kilimanjaro did a good job of that.

Q: What were the unique challenges involved in making this film?

A: On Everest, I had a team that knew the mountain, right down to the Sherpas, who I’d worked with before. People like Robert had climbed the mountain before; Ed Viesturs had climbed it. And even though we had the unexpected, severe challenges of the tragedy, for the most part climbing on Everest, we knew the weather, we knew the logistics, and we knew the terrain. Whereas on Kilimanjaro, although I had climbed it before, three times — and once on the route I intended to film, for research — the mountain is much less dramatic, the weather is much more problematic. Anywhere we point the camera on Everest, either at the mountain or at other mountains, you’re going to get great shots. Kilimanjaro is a massive mountain, but it’s a very broad mountain, and it has a rather unique problem, being an island peak, meaning if you can’t shoot the mountain, for whatever reason — mist, or because above you it’s just plain flat — you can’t turn the camera and look at any other mountains. So the mist was a blessing and a curse; in the end it was a blessing because it made us think harder and go back two more times, and by having no other mountains to film around us, there was no sort of easy way out; we had to keep the action, the shots, on Kilimanjaro. And it is a really, really beautiful mountain, and the drama is there. It’s dramatic beauty — it’s just hard to find.

Q: When’s the last time you climbed a major mountain without a camera?

A: 1982.

Q: Do you miss that freedom?

A: I miss it a lot. I go ice-climbing in the winter, up in New England, when we have a real winter, which we haven’t this year. Robert’s in the same boat — he’s climbed five of the world’s highest peaks, and he started out like I did, a climber who became a filmmaker, and we both sit around thinking, when are we just going to go climbing again? And we really want to and we will. It’s just that you find yourself up there, and you have to get out of that habit of suddenly saying, look at that scene, look at that beautiful village, look at the stories these villagers have to tell, and not feel almost irresponsible by being there without a camera. But I do often think, especially with the logistical challenges of an Imax film team, of where did that kind of carefree, "we’re going to go into the mountains with a little bit of gear that fits in our backpack" idea go?

Q: Do you worry that if you go up without a camera, you’re going to love it so much that you won’t want to make another film?

A: No, because actually the kind of climbs I would like to really do are difficult enough and steep enough that not only can you not have porters, you wonder if you can even carry your still camera, much less a little video camera. If I have a still camera, I’m fine with that. I’ve made trips through Tibet and through Nepal; sure, I haven’t climbed a big mountain without a camera, but I’ve made many trips to the Himalayas without a motion-picture camera, and it doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, I do think sometimes that the propensity in life to not just commit things to memory, but to have to record everything on a camera ... some things are better off committed to memory. I’ve taken pictures of mountains and places and come back delighted with those memories, looked at the photos, and said, "Gee. The pictures aren’t as nice as I remember." It’s like anything in life — it’s just a balance. I think to have a record of a place is great. I think to miss the place because you’re making a record of it is a mistake.

Q: Climbing a mountain like Everest or Kilimanjaro, which do you think is more important: strength or intelligence?

A: On Kilimanjaro, it’s not strength. It’s patience. There are many ways to climb the mountain. Most of the people who think they climbed it didn’t, because they’re turned around and later given a certificate for reaching Gilman’s Point, which is part of the crater rim, but it’s 600 feet from the summit. So the majority of the people who think they’ve climbed Kilimanjaro haven’t. Six hundred feet is a long way from the top. But it’s in the guides’ interest and everybody’s interest to just head down. If you’re out and about, walking the streets and going to work, you can climb Kilimanjaro. But do yourself a favor and take six or seven days. And enjoy the mountain; why go halfway around the world and save a few dollars and race up and down?

Q: Why do you think you’re still alive today?

A: I’m a very cautious person. There are risks inherent in climbing, but the ones I don’t take are being unprepared or unfit or reckless or cavalier. We accept that the weather can come in; we should be prepared for that. There are dangers — rock fall and snowfall, which we can’t control, but we try to assess. Skill level, apprenticeship, experience, knowing your limits and how far past your limits you can go, which really come out of a youth spent climbing, are what keep people like Robert and I alive in the mountains. We were the ones at Camp Three that were happy, in ’96, to turn around and come down and wait. We knew we were strong enough to come back. And that comes from confidence; you can make bad decisions in the mountains based on desperation and weakness, meaning, this is our only chance; let’s go. If it’s our only chance, I’ll say, yeah, it’s our only chance, [but] let’s turn around and go home.

Q: When’s the last time you took a vacation?

A: Oh, I’ve had a few off and on this summer. You know, I go skiing, I go ice-climbing. I have periods when I don’t work. But the idea of a vacation vacation ... I don’t really take one, because a vacation to me means not doing a lot.

Q: What about warm-weather vacations?

A: Those don’t appeal to me. People in the winter want to go south; I want to go north, or to snowy mountains. We have plenty of warm weather in Boston; I don’t need to find it in the winter. In fact, a winter like this one just hasn’t been cold enough.

Q: What scares you?

A: I don’t like swimming in the open ocean. That kind of spooks me. To be outright afraid, no. But to be concerned that it’s a very strange environment. I don’t feel comfortable. Oh, and then all the more deeper and philosophical things, but we won’t get into that.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: Well, what’s next is really deciding what’s next. I’ve got to get through a month of promoting Kilimanjaro, and then look at whether I want another big film, or a small film. It’s very easy to have an identity crisis if you don’t have another big project. And I’ve got to get to the point of not feeling that. To not look at a smaller project as backtracking. It just takes time. You get really geared up, psychically and physically, with a lot of energy and resolve, to make a film like this. And then you kind of swing your gaze around looking for another target to direct that energy at.

Q: What do you think you’d be doing now if you hadn’t gone down the filmmaking-and-climbing road?

A: I can’t ever imagine not having gone down the climbing path. My strongest identity, my greatest skills as an individual, lie in climbing, not in filmmaking. So I can’t imagine not having been a climber and a mountaineer and a traveler. If I wasn’t a filmmaker, I really have no idea. I don’t. When I was 19 years old, I had no interest in filmmaking; I watched other people make films, I was hired to carry loads, and I became interested in filmmaking.

Q: Did you go to college?

A: I started and I said, this isn’t going to work for me. I was way too impatient. I was an unruly youth, and wanting the kind of romance and intense self-discipline of the climber’s life. You’re not training to win a gold medal and all those kudos. And I admired that world, that self-reliant we’ll-do-it-because-we-want-to-do-it. It has its drawbacks, that life — you end up maybe missing some skills that would’ve come more easily. That side of me that rebelled against a formal education at that age has served me well in other ways. In one way, I’m just kind of — without any bravado, I’m just kind of fearless. Whether I have another job in six months or a year, I arrange my life to accommodate that, in terms of income and expenses. Freelance filmmakers, we have monsoons and we have droughts. And I like it. The opportunities are there; I’m kind of shoving them out of the way.

Kilimanjaro: To the Roof of Africa opens at the Museum of Science, in Boston, on March 16. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com