Utter & complete insanity

We went tonight to one of the Cape Storm events to watch Ronnie Muhl's movie of his Everest ascent earlier this year. He told us something I hadn't heard before: Of every four people to attempt Everest, only one in four makes it to the top. And of those, one in every fifteen doesn't make it back down again. Hence the title of this post.

It is one of the very few regrets I have in life that I didn't start climbing early enough to get any good at it and attempt a few interesting things -- but even if I had, to me "interesting things" pretty much stops at some nice rock faces in a desert somewhere. I have zero affinity for snow & ice and not much more for the concept of pushing my limits to quite that extent. The footage made it clear how close to collapse they all were by the end, and if that wasn't quite clear enough there was also footage of some of the bodies they passed. I'm content at this stage to let my children push my limits for me, I think.