--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "salyavin808" wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb wrote: > > > > When I was growing up, there was one place on Earth that held by far > > the greatest mystery for me. It was so inaccessible that for the first > > eight years of my life no human had ever been there. Then in 1953 > > two guys reached the top: > > > > > > They remained the only two humans to have stood on the top of the > > world for three years. In 1963, when Jim Whittaker and Nawang > > Gombu Sherpa reached the top, they became only the 13th and 14th > > humans to have done so. It was the rarest of places on Earth, seen > > only by the rare few. > > > > Now read this excellent but heartbreaking article from National > > Geographic, written by Mark Jenkins, a member of the team who climbed > > Everest recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Whittaker's > > climb. > > > > What a sad, sad fate to befall possibly the most special place on the > > planet. > > Yeah, really sad. It's a real ego thing to climb everest thesedays, > almost any fit person can do it, if they have the time andmoney. But > trudging up in a line with all the other saps mustkill a bit of the > romance.
Altitude is really NOT all that easy. Don't assume it is until you've tried it. > I like a stroll in the hills but after watching this doc recentlyabout > what being at high altitude does to you I wouldn't want to go up to the > "death zone" of everest. Your body just falls apart when you get near > the top, concentration goes, the low air pressuremakes your heart beat > at its maximum rate all the time so theslightest exertion, like putting > your boots on, can take hours. > The view can be as good as it wants, most people are too tired to > appreciate it when they are up there, and then there's all the bodies > and rubbish like broken tents and oxygen bottles.They should call a halt > till it's all cleared up but Nepal makesa lot of money selling licences > to climb. > I'll stick to Scotland as there is less chance of dying or havingmy nose > fall off with frostbite! And the scenery aint too bad. > [Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland] The view from the Old Man of > Storr, a towering needle of petriï¬ed lava on the isle of Skye, is > one of the best in Scotland, stretching across the Sound of Ramsay and > on to the mainland. Photograph: Mark Hamblin (But I've got a few just > like it) [Old Man of Storr, Isle of Skye, Scotland] I've climbed only one middlin'-sized mountain in my life, a peak named Toubkal, in Morocco. It's the highest mountain in Morocco, and in North Africa. That said, it was less than half the height of Everest. I was 16. I was also WAY stupid, and decided to do it by myself. I survived. There must have been some kind of karma going down, because I certainly didn't deserve to survive. I was far more stupid than the people the author of the article I cited talked about. It was summer, and there was no snow, but now that I'm older and wiser I realize that there could have been at any moment, and that I was just fuckin' lucky. I was experiencing altitude sickness at a mere 13,000+ feet. I simply cannot imagine what the people on Everest must be experiencing. That said, the only mountain (said with tongue slightly in cheek, because we're talking about the UK) *in* the UK I'd love to climb is a place in Wales called Cader Idris. I love the place in theory because there is a myth about it. It is said that whoever spends the night alone on Cader Idris will come down the mountain the next day either a madman or a bard. And if one becomes a bard, one *has* to take this gift On The Road and share it with as many people as humanly possible. I could live with that.
