Climbing

On June 8, 1924, veteran climber and geologist Noel Odell mounted the crest of a Himalayan crag and gazed up toward the tallest peak on Earth. Taking in the awe-inspiring sight, he noticed two tiny “objects” far ahead on a snowy slope “going strongly for the top.” To Odell, a trained and talented observer, the pair of ascending dots appeared to be a mere thousand feet or so below the summit. He later wrote that as he stood intently watching this dramatic appearance, the scene suddenly became enveloped in cloud and the “objects” vanished from his view. It was the last sighting of his fellow expeditionaries, George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, alive.

Colombo In January, I promised a visiting Army reservist friend that we’d climb Adam’s Peak. That plan was scotched when I came down with dengue fever. But I’d climbed Adam’s Peak before (the first time, Christmas 2004, when the tsunami struck, probably saved my life) and there would always be another chance to do it, right? Things change. Like everyone else in town, I was already bored and irritable from the first week of our lockdown when I saw a burst of British news items on COVID-19 nixing Everest expeditions, pensioners trying to keep fit indoors and some chap figuring out how many stairs it took to ‘top’ the mountains of the British Isles. Challenge accepted.