On the face of it mountaineering is a pretty stupid undertaking. Up there, hundreds of meters of air between the you and the ground, at the mercy of the howling winds in sub zero temperatures, a moment away from annihilation. Worse still you drag your companions, the ones you are roped to, into the abyss. One false move and you drop thousands of feet to your death and the moment you let go or slip you know that will be the outcome. Edward Whymper, the first man to conquer the Matterhorn had this to say; “Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the end.”  

When the extreme weather sets in you have to tough it out. There’s no cosy warm snug round the corner, reverberating to the sound of laughter, glasses clinking and a group of friends to josh and banter with. You’re there, clinging to the rock face and to your own mortality. What thoughts have plagued many a climbers minds in those moments. Thoughts of loved ones, of wives, husbands, of children they may never see again, of better, easier times. The fear, praying to make it through, for the freezing gale to abate, praying that frostbitten toes and fingers don’t suffer too much damage, resulting in amputation. Yes, climbing mountains is for fools. But what courageous fools. They don’t do it for the adulation, for the applause, they do it to push themselves to their limits, they take themselves as far as they can endure with no thought for the consequences. It’s their own battle, their own fight for survival, to overcome all the odds, heavily stacked against them. “Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.” ? Robert Macfarlane. 

Many lose the battle but many survive and feel the absolute joy of the conquest, of beating all the odds, of surviving the worst that mother nature can throw at them. Many a climber will tell you of the climb that went smoothly, of the weather that was kind, of the ascent that went like a dream, of standing at the summit, proud and invincible. George Mallory, who most famously said when asked why he climbed Everest; “Because it’s there” also had this to say; “How to get the best of it all? One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end - to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared. . . Is this the summit, crowning the day? How cool and quiet! We're not exultant; but delighted, joyful; soberly astonished. . . Have we vanquished an enemy? None but ourselves. Have we gained success? That word means nothing here. Have we won a kingdom? No. . . and yes. We have achieved an ultimate satisfaction. . . fulfilled a destiny. . . To struggle and to understand - never this last without the other; such is the law. . .” 

Many climbers will always be haunted by dark thoughts of times when things didn’t go quite so smoothly, of colleagues lost and never found, to be given up by the melting snow and ice years into the future. On the ground, in safety, gazing at the summit, the mountain can appear quite benign, not too difficult, it’s easy to be lulled into complacency, it can’t be that difficult? surely? many have been there, why not me? From the other perspective, the ground and safety can seem impossibly out of reach, a place that can never be found again. I’ll leave the last word to Ed Viesturs; “Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”  Indeed!