There are four things on the NeverTooLate List that are going to take some thought and some serious application. No. 1 – Learn to fly, No. 11 – Write a book, and No. 20 – Make money from doing something you love. But No. 9 – Climb a Mountain, and my particular aim to climb Everest, to the summit, probably requires the most thought of all. For that reason I have started thinking about it now and to consider whether I should be spending my money on going to see a therapist instead, as I clearly have a screw loose. I have been following the blog of a bloke called Ian Rogers who lives in my local town of Market Harborough. His expedition team went out with Altitude Junkies www.altitudejunkies.com and the team summited at different points over 19th/20th /21st of May. Ian got as far as the Hillary Step and couldn’t continue due to vision problems but made it down and you can read his personal account on a blog called Climb4Life at www.harboroughmail.co.uk. Reading Ian’s account alongside those of other climbers really serves to make you take this most significant of decisions very carefully. Ed Viesturs, one of only five people on the planet to summit all fourteen mountains over 8,000 feet and without supplemental oxygen to boot so a bit of an authority on the subject reckons that people need risk. Now for most people that doesn’t involve scaling Everest but we all take risks every day whether we think about it or not. I’ve come up with a list of ten risks I think people take all the time without giving the slightest thought to the consequences but which given the wrong place wrong time theory, could have a pretty troublesome outcome:
- Driving through an amber light
- Eating out-of-date food in the fridge
- Holding a mobile phone to your ear instead of using an earpiece
- Changing all your credit and debit cards to the same PIN number and then writing it down
- Crossing the road without waiting for the ‘green man’ to flash
- Going out/going to bede and leaving the oven/washing machine/tumble drier going
- Not having the boiler and electrical appliances checked and serviced annually
- Drinking more than is good for us
- Being overweight and not taking enough exercise
- Having sex without using a condom
Risk is relative I suppose and the more risk you take and the harder you push yourself without negative results then the more risk you’re inclined to take. That’s why some climbers start with Ben Nevis and end up on the summit of Everest......