There Is Nothing Glamorous Or Romantic About

It Was Titillating To Brush Up Against The Enigma Of Mortality, To Steal A Glimpse Across Its Forbidden Frontier. Climbing Was A Magnificient Activity, I Firmly Believed, Not In Spite Of The Inherent Perils, But Precisely Because Of Them.

Having Stumbled Upon A Tolerable Career, For The First Time In My Life I Was Actually Living Above The Poverty Line. My Hunger To Climb Had Been Blunted, In Short, By A Bunch Of Small Satisfactions That Added Up To Something Like Happiness.

Everest Has Always Been A Magnet For Kooks, Publicity Seekers, Hopeless Romantics And Others With A Shaky Hold On Reality.

Straddling The Top Of The World, One Foot In China And The Other In Nepal, I Cleared The Ice From My Oxygen Mask, Hunched A Shoulder Against The Wind, And Stared Absently Down At The Vastness Of Tibet.

That's What Was Great About Him. He Tried. Not Many Do.