Mount Meru: Climbing the Shark's Fin | Op-Docs | The New York Times

You, the

shark

fin and central Grouper, this is the anti Everest. Meru isn't just hard, it's hard in this really complicated way. You have to be able to ice climb, mixed

climbing

, and you have to be able to climb big walls at 20,000 feet. It's all those things wrapped up in one package that have defeated so many good climbers, which for a certain type of mindset is an irresistible draw. Climbing is very risky, but I do it with my choice when I am on the rope with that risk up. control of my destiny if I let it go, boom, I'm dead, I hold on to it, I make it to the top, I have this endorphin and an in-game reward, and

climbing

is cutting that line as thin as you can, but you don't .

If you want to take stupid risks, you're supposed to prove that you're so good and so controlled that you can go right to that line and go no further. I'm sure some of that is competitive, but a challenge whose outcome is guaranteed is not. really a challenge in the strange moral universe of climbers the challenge has to be a real defeat it has to be a probability death a possibility every day it seemed like there was some insur

mount

able obstacle but I think your comfort level and your threshold or acceptance Risk For me, it is directly related to what I want to get out of the life of a climber.

I think one of the most important things you can do is evaluate each potential hazard in terms of what could go wrong, what a fall would be like, and what your gusts look like. If you fall at this point, what would happen? or if you drop your food, what would happen? What could be the worst case scenario? When you go on an expedition you have to be convinced that you can do it, but honestly I wasn't fully prepared for what we found ourselves in, it's hard to overstate the kind of condition you're in, you were literally just eating a couple of spoonfuls of granola in the morning and sharing a couple of slices of salami during the day, so you were definitely I had pretty limited rations at this point I would freeze shivering uncontrollably but I definitely didn't want to be the guy saying oh I'm cold I want to get down we were wearing ourselves out but there's this guy of bravado or this aspect of climbers you never want to go up to retreat and go down until you really have everything straight up there.

I raised a couple of moves and realized that it will take us four or five hours to deal with this step prepared about twenty and a half thousand. feet to the shore to the ridge it's arctic probably another 500 feet to the summit we're aiming for the bridge lined up just below the summit we've been going for probably 12 hours giant chunks of snow and ice I could really feel myself losing my fingers and toes feet I started screaming and screaming and crying, that was my last breaking point, but they were talking about spending the night there, what if we keep going?

Should we move on? It's hard to describe what that line is, but you know when you cross it. and we had already crossed it and drawn another line and then we crossed it again and then we drew another line and crossed it again like mentor and the silverback the old man of the team the most I hate this is like this we can't We're done, we can't, there's too much risk involved, we know that the standard tale of Sisyphus has to start at the bottom of hell and he rolls this boulder to the steep top and then before I reach the top of the powers of the universe. turn the stone down you have to do it all over and over again there is and there is no reward this was thought to be the definition of hell it's over it's not easy and maybe it just wasn't meant to be stated just a stone's throw away from arriving to the top and then not being able to make it was heartbreaking we all gave our best we surpassed our limits but something was left undone you Oh