Everest, Humility, and 90 Years of Living
Climbing books — especially those focusing on extraordinary ascents and massive achievements — are rarely tomes of humility, tending instead to hubristic celebrations of one’s strength, power, and ability. As a kid, when I began reading these books, it was something that always turned me off, repulsed me to some degree, for it seemed to cheapen the experience I perceived in climbing, a deeply profound experience of unimaginable beauty born of humility, of a landscape and activity solidifying in no uncertain terms that we are but mere participants in the game at hand, the game of life, and our success or failure means little aside from the recognition of the need to forever strive forward, onward, upward, with grace and love and a sense of wonder.
I was thrilled when, in 1986, my great uncle passed along to me a tattered, dogeared paperback of a book called simply “Everest: The West Ridge.” For inside those worn pages was the story of courage and determination, teamwork and camaraderie, philosophical inquiry amongst massive-but-humble success. One needs only to browse quickly through the book to be intrigued; not many climbing books include quotes from a UN Secretary-General, and especially not ones like this from Dag Hammarskjöld, printed on the final page:
Never let success hide its emptiness from you, achievement its nothingness, toil its…
