Climb Everest? Not In This Lifetime

I just finished watching a documentary on "Surviving Everest". It was by National Geographic and I borrowed it from the local library. Not a usual choice of video I'll admit but I'm a broke student, a library card is free, and I have a lot of time on my hands. Their selection may not be great but hey I learned something. I now know I will never climb Mount Everest. There is a reason the movie was so aptly named. There is a high probability of death, but even if you don't die there are a long list of other unpleasant things that can and probably will happen to you that you would live through but you would probably wish you were dead. I think you have to be a very specific breed of crazy to attempt to climb that mountain.

The other thing that I really don't like about the idea is that it seems like cheating. If you climb to the top of the mountain you would be able to boast proudly that you climbed the highest peak in the world but you won't have done it on your own. For the majority of the trip you would have been carrying nothing while a dozen sherpa's cart all the teams food and gear on their backs while balancing precariously on a ladder over a 500 ft crevasse. It just doesn't seem to add up to me. If I were to truly want to claim I climbed Everest I would want to be able to have carted in my own gear on my back. And since I know I am physically not capable of doing that, I don't think I have the right to climb the mountain. I'll admit you can't climb entirely alone (in most cases) and you need some help, like a climbing partner, but to basically use people as your slaves who risk there lives for you to climb a mountain does not seem fair to me. I think I will set my sites on a much smaller more attainable mountain to someday hopefully climb. "Attempting to climb".

There have been talks of base camp 2010 (I think that was the projected date. Gasmaster, help me out here) and I will definitely consider making that trip because Nepal does look like an amazing place to be. I thought the Rockies were breathtaking but they are nothing compared to the Himalayas and I've only seen them in pictures so I can just imagine what they would look like in person.

So climbing Mt. Everest, that's one thing I can scratch off my list of "the craziest things I would never consider actually doing but admit would be awesome to accomplish."