November 27, 2004
The Mountain Is A Harsh Mistress
All my life, I've been cursed with a near-paralyzing fear of heights. Perhaps as a result of my fear, I've made a point to read and learn something about a group of people who feel anything but fear when it comes to heights: Mountain climbers.
A couple of years back, I essentially inhaled Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, the best-selling account of an expedition to Mount Everest that went all wrong. Most recently, I watched Touching The Void last night on PBS -- a fantastic documentary about a troubled assault on a mountain in the Peruvian Andes.
In each case, I came away with incredible admiration for the folks in the world of mountaineering -- for their skill, their determination and for the appreciation that death is always lurking in the next crevasse.
Which is why I couldn't help but be pulled in by the story of Nils Antezana, a 69-year old American immigrant success story who decided something was missing in his life. And that something was Mount Everest:
One morning, a few years ago, his wife remembers, he asked to speak to her. With a little bow of his head, he murmured: "With you, I am very happy. But I seem to be missing something." He told her that he needed the mountains.
She would not, could not, stop him, she knew. During their 38-year marriage, each would always grant independence to the other. She had a construction and property development business that consumed her hours, and he now had his climbing.
His yen for the mountains eventually led him to Nepal, where he would attempt, at 69, to become the second-oldest individual (and the oldest American) ever to scale the mountain. And while he made it to the summit, the end of the story is anything but happy. Click here to read it now. And if you're as intrigued as much as I was by the story of Antezana, be sure to stop by an online chat with Washington Post Magazine correspondent Michael Leahy on Monday at 1:00 p.m. U.S. EST.
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That story was horrifying. As bad as it was for the family, I'd give anything not to face the dilemma the Sherpas faced when they had to decide whether to leave the guy where he was or pursue a lost cause.
Perhaps the story should be required reading for anyone who wants to take a quick dash up Everest without (A) being in peak shape and (B) having experienced people with you.
Posted by:
at November 29, 2004 09:33 AM
Dear Eric,
Having a look around for comments and reaction to my father's story, I came across yours.
A great many people wrote to us following the first story printed in the Washington Post on June 12th, one attorney in particular struck me saying that he had abandoned his practice taking early retirement to do all the things he had always dreamed of. I am delighted to see that my father's story has struck you in the much the same way.
If I may make a suggestion towards conquering your vertigo. Skydiving. My first birthday following my father's death I was inconsolable and wanted no celebrations. I drove out to Orange, Va with a friend to the same school my father had juped with just a few months earlier. I jumped (tandem mind you) 14,000 feet. I can't remember feeling more alive since his death. I think fear of heights is at its worst only when one can distinguish that which is below you. With skydiving however, you linger, if only briefly and see how wonderfullly vast our earth is. You forget the minutia.
And by the way, climbers feel fear all the time. I myself climb, only rock that is (now considering ice) and have come to realize this. Fear is what keeps them sharp and alive on the mountain. They simply handle it better.
Perhaps you might consider skydiving as your own leap of faith.
Remember to live today.
kindest regards,
Fabiola Antezana
Posted by:
at November 29, 2004 03:43 PM
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