After All, It Is Called Mount Widowmaker

Some links to see to before we get ourselves started today. Yesterday was a Sunday, so we had a Snippet Sunday post at our joint blog. Check out Eve's post at her page about an anthology she's involved in. And Whisk had this item about Red Shirts.

Now then, today I return to my occasional theme of eulogies, given by someone you hope never does the eulogy at your funeral.

“Thank you kindly, Reverend Simmons, for your comforting words. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on this sad day to remember the life of our dear friend George. I have been asked today by the family to give the eulogy. I only hope that I can do right by him.

He was the grandest friend you could have ever asked for. Friends help you move. Real friends help you move a body, as they say. Well, George and I did once move a body- oh don’t look at me like that. We had to take a body off Mount Rainier together when we were in the rescue service. It seemed that a rich plastic surgeon’s widow insisted that her husband’s body be taken down after he had a heart attack and died on a climb, and, well, the job fell to us. That was in our college days, and let me tell you, Old Man Prentice’s corpse was a bear to haul off the mountain. There were a few times George and I thought about just hurling the body down the slope and letting him fall where he might, but there was a five figure payday in it for both of us- did I mention the widow was rich?- and we both earned our pay.

Years later George and I would still talk about Old Man Prentice and how grisly he started to look twelve hours dead. Well, at least George went out a better way, as opposed to having his heart conk out on him at ten thousand feet and losing control of his bowels like Old Man Prentice. Although given the way George met his end...that might not be a better way to bite the dust.

Where was I? Oh, yes, back in the day. You know, George and I knew all the right girls in all the wrong places- or is that right places? We were the rock jocks, out there doing a job that was just too much fun. Aside from moving Old Man Prentice. That kept us both in shape, and even though we moved on to other things, we never lost our love for being out on a rock face, the rock at our fingertips and the air beneath us. It’s the best place to be. Better than sex, even. Well, that might depend on the mountain and the sex. Oh, sorry, Reverend Simmons, I forgot where I was. What I mean is that we both had active social lives, lots of girls in and out of our lives. A whole lot of fun. That’s how he met his dearest wife Alicia. And she indulged his continuing to climb, even though she had a personal phobia about heights. 

Alicia, George always appreciated that about you. You always let him go off and climb whatever rock face struck his interest. You never tried to rein him in. Unlike Deidre, who married our climbing buddy Ryan and promptly forbade him to ever go out on a mountain trek again. Yes, Ryan was, as they say, totally neutered by getting married. Oh, Ryan! There you are. Sorry, I didn’t think the battleaxe would let you come... oh, sorry, Deidre, I didn’t see you there.

Well, George loved life and lived big. He knew well enough to leave work at work and enjoy the simple pleasures of family and the breathtaking thrill of a good climb. He was happy with the state of his life, had the love of a good woman, three great kids- hello, Jane, Peter, and Thomas. Your daddy was proud to have you as his children, you know, and in a way he’ll always be watching over you. Just hold onto that thought. Don’t even think of the way he died. Think of the way he lived. Strong and happy and loved and proud of the life he’d made.

I know. I get it. It’s hard to think of that as we gaze on his coffin. Obviously it had to be sealed. Given what happened, there was no way that he could have been in an open casket. It would have been... unseemly.

They say you shouldn’t dwell on a person’s death during a funeral. You should celebrate their life. Well, as much as we would like that, we can’t avoid it, can we? I know I can’t… because I was there. I saw it happen. There we were, up on top of the north face of Mount Widowmaker. We’d just completed the ascent, all seven thousand feet of it. We were feeling good. George was there standing near the edge. If only he had done like me… standing away from the edge. He might have been here. Maybe nothing would have happened at all, instead of what did happen.

I’ll never forget that moment, no matter how long I live. There I am, looking at him. There’s George, dancing an Irish jig in celebration of reaching the top, like he’d done a thousand times before. The geologists and the park staff are still trying to figure out what happened. Having had seen it myself, I’m trying to figure it out myself. All we know is that twenty five thousand tons of granite suddenly gave way from the side of the cliff. With George right on top of the whole shebang.

One moment he was there. The next, the whole thing goes, the cliff edge is suddenly forty feet closer to me than it was, and there’s the loudest roar I have ever heard coming up from below. It was that fast. And despite myself, I couldn’t help but say it. I remember saying those words. George? Are you there?

Well of course he wasn’t. After the dust cloud subsided, the rangers found what was left of his body among the rocks at the bottom. Ground and pasted into a bloody mess of pulp and bone. They had to use a scraper, I’m told. And even so, for years to come, parts of George are still going to be out there, no doubt.

Oh, Alicia, I’ve been too graphic, haven’t I? I’m sorry. At least he went quickly. Plunging seven thousand feet straight down amid tons of rock and being pulped wouldn’t mean a slow agonizing death.

Damn. I’ve been too graphic again.

Look at it this way, Alicia. At least you’re getting one hell of an insurance payout."

Five Thousand Feet Up Mount Calamity

Some business before the mayhem as expected. Go on over to Beishir Books or to Norma's Blogger page, and have a peek at an excerpt from a hilarious work in progress she's calling Sucker Punched. And let her know what you think.

Now then, to the chaos at hand...

"It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves." ~ Edmund Hillary

"Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory." ~ Ed Viesturs

"For a climber, saying that you are stopping by Everest is like saying you're stopping by to see God." ~ Roland Smith

"Every mountain is within reach if you just keep climbing." ~ Barry Finlay

"If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.”  ~ George Mallory

"Life's a little like mountaineering- never look down." ~ Edmund Hillary

"He had a head start on me, but it didn't matter. I had the experience, the equipment, the knowledge of these mountains. He had a pair of loafers, designer clothes, no climbing gear, and no idea what he was doing. It was fear that drove him up Mount Calamity. Fear, and the slowly dawning knowledge that I wasn't the Lars Ulrich he thought I was, and that I was annoyed. Honestly, what was it with these entertainment reporters, constantly mistaking me for that heavy metal guy? That Lars looked like he's been hit in the face by an ugly stick too many times. No matter. I knew the mountain, and there was no place on its slopes that Entertainment Tonight reporter could hide from me. Sooner or later, I'd be throttling that waste of space Rodrigo Perez." ~ RCMP Inspector Lars Ulrich

For those who might not know, I'm a rock climber. I've been doing it since I got a taste for it climbing Rattlesnake Point on the Niagara Escarpment when I was a kid- without equipment, experience, or a fellow climber (yes, I know that's stupid now). Needless to say, it did open up my taste for it. Most of that's been done in the eastern parts of the continent, up whatever convenient rock face presented itself. It's something that I've enjoyed doing- though I have yet to have gone this season. With the passing of my mother (four months ago today), I don't really trust myself right now on a climb, and that's not good for other climbers. It'll come back when it comes back.

I can say that we climb because the mountain's there (like the ill-fated George Mallory once said). We climb for the sheer joy of the experience. And we climb because if we couldn't, we'd have to find some other foolish way to fill our spare time. It wouldn't be nearly as much fun though.

So I thought today that I'd give you some images to amuse or shock yourself with (depending on your tolerance for heights). Enjoy, and do tell if the prospect of mountain climbing excites you or chills your nerves...

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The Will To Live

A friend of my family from northern Ontario once saw a man stumble out of the woods onto his property, frantic and dishevelled, utterly terrified. He had been lost for merely an hour. Had he been lost for a night, he'd have probably been found dead. It's a hard fact of life: if you're lost and you panic, you're going to increase your odds of dying. If you stay calm, keep your head, and focus on the problem at hand, you've got a good chance of seeing home again.

In 2003, climber Aron Ralston took a trip into the canyons of Utah. The ordeal he went through was widely reported at the time, and later Ralston wrote about it in the book Between A Rock And  A Hard Place. Now director Danny Boyle has given us the film 127 Hours, starring James Franco as Ralston.

The first impression Franco gives us is of a man with an exuberance for life. Both in the book and in the film, Ralston comes across as an experienced outdoorsman. He loves getting out into the back country, exploring the wilderness. On this trip, however, he makes a couple of critical mistakes, which he deeply comes to rue. He goes off without telling anyone his plans, or when to expect him home. And when he comes across two women hiking in the canyon he visits, rather then leave with them, he chooses to explore further on his own.

Most people go into this film already knowing what happened to Ralston. A misstep in the tight canyon sends him falling, and a boulder comes loose, pinning his hand. And so Ralston is trapped, with no one knowing where he is, and we the audience are trapped with him. Doyle places us right there, face to face with two fears: being trapped and dying alone.

Ralston attempts to move the rock, first with his own strength and then with the equipment he has at hand, but has no success. He realizes how much trouble he's in. He has little food, little water, and he knows full well how long he might expect to live if no one comes across him. He understands that it might be days before anyone realizes he's even missing. In the days that follow, Ralston speaks to his family through the video camera he has on hand. He suffers. He hallucinates. He edges ever closer to death. And the audience can't help but feel a deep empathy for him.

I was reminded watching the film of a similar story, documented in the book and film Touching The Void. Climber Joe Simpson, presumed dead on a mountain in South America, his leg badly broken, dragged himself off the mountain to base camp, despite the pain, despite the reality that he shouldn't have been able to do so. He and his friends tell their story while actors reenact the tale, and Simpson tells us that at the end, he was convinced that he was going to die, but he didn't want to die alone. He wanted to be with someone when he went. That need is repeated in Ralston's experience.

Ralston is cut off from the world, and he knows he's going to die, alone. Finally, in a moment of clarity, he realizes what he has to do to escape, and as unthinkable as it is, he does so without reservation. The amputation scene is graphic. Don't go into this film with a full stomach. Still, it's an essential scene. Ralston takes his fate into his hands, driven by the primal need we all have to survive.

The film is outstanding. Doyle, a strong director with a varied group of films to his credit, brings us right into the situation. Another director might find the notion of a camera being confined in a small space for so long to be a daunting process, but Doyle rises to the challenge and succeeds. He's given us a film that makes us think, raises some tough questions, and ultimately uplifts the audience.

And the Oscar should just be given to James Franco right now. His performance is that good. Franco is one of those actors who seems incapable of giving a bad performance, and he's in fine form with this role. We feel deeply for our protagonist as his ordeal progresses. Franco proves adept at conveying an expression that haunts us during the ordeal. His hallucinations and one way speeches to his family during the ordeal are heartbreaking. And he captures the essence of Ralston's resourcefulness, fortitude, and courage perfectly.

This is the best film of the year.

Because It's There

That was George Mallory's response to a reporter who asked him why he wanted to go climb Everest. He was annoyed (reporters will do that) and wanted to get going on the expedition, and so he answered "because it's there."

George went on three Everest expeditions with the British in the 1920s. In the last one, in 1924, he and his partner Sandy Irvine were the last pair to make an attempt. The last anyone saw of them, they were heading up a ridge, and a storm closed around them. Their expedition partners never found them; Mallory's body was only found in the late nineties, not where he was expected. He'd fallen, and the general consensus is that he and Irvine never made the top. Irvines' body has yet to be found, and their camera must be with him.

Mallory must have lived after the fall; there were elements about how the body was positioned that suggested it. But he didn't live long, not exposed at the top of the world, in the midst of a blinding snowstorm. His body was buried in a pile of rocks by the people who found him, so he'll rest up there for the rest of eternity.

Why do I bring this up? I'm a climber. Most of my climbing tends to be rock faces, close to home, but it's a sport I love. If you want to call it a sport; you're not really competing, are you?

I climb because I love it. Having empty space beneath me, rock at my fingertips? That's home. I love the idea of grand views, of standing at the top of a cliff with all that space below.

The late great Alaskan climber and explorer Bradford Washburn had another way of looking at climbing. In his case, it was Denali, and he was speaking to the filmmaker Ken Burns, who was working on his documentary on the National Parks. He remarked on Denali as thinking of it as an old pal, although one that can tear you apart. I agree with him. Places I have climbed, and places I want to climb? They're old pals. Places to be respected, first and foremost, because if you're not careful, you can die. But old pals nonetheless.