My Mount Everest

I just finished "reading" (as an audio book) Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer and I am astonished and intrigued by the idea of climbing Mount Everest. This book tells the story about the expeditions who climbed the mountain during 1996. Five people in these expeditions and three others in an expedition of climbers from India were killed. The sheer immensity of this mountain and the difficulties that must be surmounted to summit this peak are astonishing to me. In climbing Everest, you are climbing to the cruising altitude of commercial passenger jet airplanes. I made a trip to Breckenridge, Colorado a few years back. At an altitude of about 10,000 feet, I noticed my breathing became very labored just by carrying my bags to my room! I also had difficulty sleeping initially at that very modest altitude. The summit of Everest is about three times this altitude. I can't imagine what kind of mental focus, bodily strength and dedication it must take to conquer this.

I do not think i want to climb Mount Everest. It would be an exciting accomplishment, but the idea of rolling the dice with one's life like that seems rather irrational.

My own version of Everest has been, and remains to this day, the running of a marathon. Twenty six and two tenths of a mile in distance seems just as lofty a goal to me as 29,053 feet of altitude. Much like the climbers of Everest, I have made some attempts that have fallen short. Stay tuned for more about a novel way of breaking this goal down and why I am currently tied down at “sea level”.