What Are You Reading ?

[Jerome]

do you or have you mountaineered Jerome???

No, I have not. One, coming from a warm climate, I do not handle the cold very well. Two, and more importantly, I just don't have the nerve/balls to do it. Always wondered if it was something I should have tried. Done plenty of hiking in the mountains in various countries, but that's hardly the same thing as scaling a peak over a period of days/weeks. Mountains have always fascinated me but the thought of being stuck up one of them for days in sub-zero temperatures leaves me cold (pun most definitely intended). I have great respect for those that do it. It takes a special person to achieve what those guys do and I am just not cut from the same cloth. Must be one hell of an experience though. Part of me admires what these people achieve and part of me questions their sanity. If you ever get the chance read a book by Joe Simpson called 'The Beckoning Silence'. A very accurate and honest summary of when an experienced mountaineer starts questioning his own logic while stuck on the face of the Eiger and the weather is turning really bad. It also documents his struggle for survival on a different expedition where he had no option to go anywhere but further down into the crevasse he was trying to get out of. Balls of steel, to put it mildly. A fascinating read.