
Mt. Everest. Courtesy of Wikipedia user Rdevany.
I have recurring nightmares about Mount Everest.
There’s nothing in my life that’s given me a frame of reference for what it would be like summit a mountain taller than the ones we have on the East Coast. I can’t even imagine being surrounded by the kind of snow and ice you’d have to climb to make it to the top of the world’s highest peak. Still, I go through periods where my dreams are gripped by falls into crevasses; fingers blackened by frostbite; and the long, cold sleep that leaves climbers trapped on the mountain for eternity.
This is the ugly truth: I’m terrified of Everest.
Of course, this is illogical. Unless something changes in my life, I have zero risk of suffering an Everest-related catastrophe. The distance from Washington, DC to Nepal is 7,626 miles. Assuming I somehow got a direct flight, it would take me 16 hours to get to Kathmandu. That wouldn’t even be the end of the journey; I would still need to fly to Lukla and go on a multi-day trek to base camp. And really, no one is ever going to force me to pay thousands of dollars to summit a mountain I don’t want to climb (this year, climbers shelled out anywhere from $30,000 to $85,000).
Given the logistics, there’s no way that I’m in any imminent danger from Mount Everest.
But my fear persists.
It would be enough if I were just quietly afraid, but my reaction to Everest is similar to the way rubberneckers treat traffic accidents. I want nothing to do with the mountain, but I can’t stop myself from reading everything I can about it.
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