Brain Food #831: Learning to come down
On the value of climbing and unclimbing mountains
Thoughts of the day
On 29 May 1953, mountaineers Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers to have reached the summit of Mount Everest. Nearly thirty years earlier, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared in the clouds while ascending the mountain’s Northeast Ridge. The question of whether they reached the top or not will remain unanswered forever.
Unlike other sports records, which are against time, or distance, mountain peaks are fixed, and can only be conquered for the first time once.
When considering the possibility that Norgay and he had been second, Edmund Hillary pointed out the importance of the descent:
“If it were discovered that Mallory had, in actual fact, set foot on the top of Everest, obviously it would make some difference to Tenzing and myself. For 33 years, we have been regarded as the heroic figures who first reached the summit of Everest. Well, now I guess we'd be just downgraded a little bit, to being the first two men who reached the summit and actually got safely down again. Which brings up a point, of course. If you climb a mountain for the first time and die on the descent, is it really a complete first ascent of the mountain? I'm rather inclined to think, personally, that maybe it's quite important, the getting down. And the complete climb of a mountain is reaching the summit and getting safely to the bottom again.”
Today the summit is busy, some claim exceedingly so. What was considered an impossible task is now within the reach of many. If the glory of being the first to get there no longer exists, what still makes the task worthwhile?
Climbing mountains is perhaps the biggest feat man can achieve against nature - at least, before space travel was possible - though eventually, the challenge is always against oneself. As Robert Macfarlane suggested, while facing the challenges of climbing, whether the ascent is literal or metaphorical, you are “rewarded with the realisation that you exist - as unlikely as it may seem, you do exist.”
Mountain peaks are unwelcoming places, their sublime permanence juxtaposing the finality of living. We are mere visitors, not meant to stay there, or here, forever. And there lies the true value of making it back down safely: not just to consider the task completed, for the way down can be as hard as the way up, but to be able to tell the tale, encouraging others to start their own climb.
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