Sometime ago (probably at the beginning of dental school), I made a resolution to stay away from reading. In the beginning( of school), I was very much busy with studying and bookwork, and didn’t have time for reading… resolution, no books.
Well, I broke the resolution the other day when a friend loaned me a book “Into Thin Air”. Essentially, this book is about the shit show and amateur day during the summit season on Mt Everest, specifically the tragedy of 10 May 1996.
Apparently, there were people no more qualified than you and I climbing the tallest and one of the most difficult mountains in the world. Stupid. This would be like me starting racing as a cat five racing with pros, but with Thunderdome rules (two men enter one man leaves). Stupid.
Anyway, I would like to wish some good friends best of luck today at the tour of Gila in Silver City, NM. Ian and Landen are racing Gila and Joe Martin back to back. Ugh. I looked at the profile for Gila; 5-10k ft of climbing daily. Day one results Ian 35th (cat 1), Landen 25th(cat 2). Also, a colleague of mine from boulder, Brian Loflen won the cat 3 race. Kudos.
2 comments:
That's a great book. Nothing more jaw dropping than when Beck Weathers comes stumbling into camp 4.
I really liked that book. I just finished Jon Krakauer's other book, Into the Wild (apparently he's not very good at coming up with titles). It's about Chris McCandless, an Emory graduate who decided to live as a nomad. Eventually he decided to disappear into the Alaska wilderness and live entirely off the land.
Four months later, hikers found his body.
It's a really good book that lets you decide whether his actions were honorable or just hubris. I highly recommend it. You can even borrow mine, unless you're still staying away from reading.
Post a Comment