(Climbing the world's 14 highest peaks: No shortcuts to the top) by Ed Viesturs
I remembered when I was in secondary school when I came across a story in Reader Digest about mountaineering. I think the title was "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer
'Into Thin Air' is about a group of expert climbers who got stuck on Mount Everest when they reached the summit way too late and got caught in bad weather. 8 climbers were killed, and some of the climbers that lost their life on during the fateful year 1996 were legends in the mountaineering history in their own rights.
'No shortcuts to the top' is about Ed Viesturs personal quest to reach the summit of the 14 highest peak on the earth..which mean reaching the summit of mountains whose height are 8000 metres above sea level. Many died while trying to achieve this quest. As the author himself have mentioned earlier in the chapter, he is the only person among the group of hard core mountaineers who survive and live till today.
While reading the story, I remembered this guy from the movie Initial D who mentioned:
'God are also human, except they are able to perform feats that human are unable to achieve.'
I felt that all mountaineers are also god in their own rights. High up on the surface at 20000 feets, they have to make extra careful decision to ensure they not only reach the summit, but also get safety back alive to the base camp. Throughout the book, the author kept repeating his personal mantra: " Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.". They live by their code of conduct on the mountains, extending a helping hand to whomever in need of help, to the extent of sacrificing their own personal aim to ensure others have the maximum chance of survival.
And it seems that every expedition they embarked are likely to be their last trip. The author also addressed this issues as he is married with family and kids. But like a car racer who require the need for speed to keep him sane regardless of the high amount of risks involve, they kept going back the mountains for more.
In short, they know someday the chances of dying in the mountains is almost a certain but it seem almost their destiny and fate have been intertwined with the mountains from the moment they start climbing.
There is this particular chapter that touched me. 2 of the author's best friends were among the victims that died on that fateful 1996 expedition. The author joined an expedition up on Mount Everest on 1997.
The thing on Mount Everest is that if someone died up there, it is virtually impossible to bring the corpses back down. The sherpas will not touch it because they are generally superstitious unless they are offer lots of money to bring it back down.Then again, it required herculean efforts just to do so. Hence, most of the bodies on mount everest will be either swept down the crevasses, buried by the snow or remain at the original position where they spent their last lonely moment at the highest peak on earth. And because it's so cold, the bodies don't decomposed but remained at their original state.
The author knew he is likely to come across the bodies of his best friends and he did. The wives of the deceased requested him to bring back something that belongs to their husbands so they can always remembered them but the author couldn't bear to do so and disturbed the bodies of his friends. He sat down beside the corpses,mourned for them and said his final goodbyes.
(Excerpts from the book)
I glanced around, then looked again at the body of my friend, frozen into the slope. I spoke out loud.'Hey Scott, I said, "How you doing?' Only the sound of the wind answered me.
'What happened, man?'
In short, I think this is a great book. Very nice, very motivating, very humane. These are among the few occupations of earth that push the human physical limit to the maximum. I got immense respect for these men. They got the heart of the lions. No jokes.
posted by Immortali @ 11:23 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home