Mordant Observations From The Scene

"Lots of dead or dying bodies.  Thought I was in a morgue", wrote a female Canadian mountain climber in a tweet sent out to her followers.  She was in a kind of morgue, in point of fact.  One that was located in the great out-of-doors, at a height that most people could not imagine themselves being landscaped within.  But this was the kind of environment that this mountain climber thrived upon. 

The danger inherent in the ascent, the dauntingly grim geological features and the unexpected climate seizures that could take the day from a clear sunny atmosphere to sudden white-out conditions with freezing sleet and impossible high winds, let alone the chance of an avalanche occurring, or the wind shoving the unfortunate off the slippery slope of the hostile mountain, made it all the more thrilling.

As an accomplishment.  To know that she had faced the worst that nature could summon in her conflict with the human spirit, bringing all the inclement weather condition combinations at her disposal, with the elements of high winds which together with the cold could scorch the lungs, and the rarified oxygen-thin atmosphere adding its threats to survival.

But this was a woman who had already summitted many of the world's most inaccessible, and difficult peaks.  And she did so with her sturdy spirit of endurance and strength, endowed with an athletic body and a mind that simply refused to harbour fear that she might be the next one that death would claim. 

She was merely an onlooker of the dread events that occurred to others, while an active participant in the success that came also to others.

It was beside the point that her group had been forced to turn back before making the summit.  Back to base camp, to rest, to consider whether they might wish to push forward, upward and onward on another day when the weather conditions appeared more auspicious to success.  If not, she would have to return on another occasion, to attempt the summit of Mount Everest again. 

She knew what she was about, the fiercely adverse conditions she would face.  She had climbed four of the seven major summits of the world.  Not a bad record.  And the fever to climb would not allow her to rest before she had managed to surface atop all seven.  Her oxygen regulator had frozen on this occasion and she had climbed four hours without the oxygen she needed to remain fully capable and alert.

She had packed her gear, prepared to admit this would not be the year she would successfully summit Mount Everest.  And then, she changed her mind.  Planning within the week to give it another try.