I said to Scott that the ascent seemed to be going slowly and that I was concerned descending climbers could possibly run out of oxygen before their return to camp IV.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I explained I wanted to descend as quickly as possible to camp IV in order to warm myself and gather a supply of hot drink and oxygen in the event I might need to go back up the mountain to assist descending climbers.
I was never comfortable with the risk of climbing in the Himalayas, or the amount of time in idleness that is involved in the Everest expedition.
Concerned that others were not coming onto the summit and because I had no radio link to those below me, I began to wonder if there were difficulties down the mountain. I made the decision to descend.
Every time I've been on Everest, people have died, though not in any expedition I was part of.
Your attitude towards failure determines your altitude after failure.
I think that people ran out of oxygen and don't really know what happened up there, maybe some of them just made things up because they weren't sure what had happened.
To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.
When you're climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.
If I know I make this much trouble, I never climb Everest.
I love to read about the exploits of technical mountain climbers, but I've never done any vertical climbing.
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