i met up with a friend recently and was just recounting to her some of my climbing stories. one of her comments that struck me was how she referred to my ‘indulgence’ in mountaineering as an ‘insult to the preciousness of life’ – referring to all the perils, risks and dangers involved in the sport.

it’s a known fact that mountaineering (as well as sports like motorcross, parachuting, skydiving and kayaking down Class 5 rapids) is an inherently risky sport (oops i hope my mum isn’t reading this).

and it’s also a myth that all people who do such sports are adrenaline junkies, looking for that vaunted adrenaline rush. well, all i can say is that huffing and puffing up a 70 degree slope in soft slushy snow isn’t an adrenaline-rushing experience at all. The only adrenaline rush you probably experience in mountaineering is when you fall into a crevasse, which is actually a nightmare for all mountaineers.

in response to my friend’s remark, i told her that i definitely do not think that my life, or any life for that matter is not precious.  i do not think that a person who sits in an armchair at home with the TV remote control in hand does justice to the ‘preciousness of life’ in any way better than people who engage in seemingly risky sport (no offence to people who sit on armchairs watching TV, i’m just giving an example) .

ever since i began to climb in 2003, and having encountered what i thought was my personal almost near-death situation on the mountains before,  i’ve come to developed a renewed appreciation for life. i’ve witnessed how one can be robbed of life by the harshness and unforgiving nature of the natural environment, human life is indeed fragile.

But i think that realization shouldn’t stop us from engaging in adventure activities and exploring, pushing the frontiers….. ultimately what prevents people from engaging in such ‘risky’ sports is fear. somehow, people are supposed to avoid experiencing the feeling of fear at all costs – it’s not a nice feeling afterall.  but somehow, the paradox is how the power of fear can sometimes drive and motivate people.

people who climb everest from the south side would be most fearful of the section of the khumbu icefall,  due to the ever shifting seracs and falling blocks of ice. so naturally, they would pay more attention and become more attuned to their surroundings, such that they can try to make a dash (in the correct direction) if they foresee any potential falling blocks of ice.

recalling an experience on cho oyu, i actually fell and turned upside down (yes my legs were hanging in the air) during my abseil down the ice cliff from Camp 2 to Camp 1.  i was actually abseiling down on a traverse rope, meaning the rope ran horizontally to the next ‘anchor point’ instead of vertically down. And that particular ‘anchor point’ wasn’t actually anchored into the snow, it was just made up of a knot for one to clip into. so as i was abseiling across the rope, i felt a very swift and sudden tug on the rope and before i knew it, i lost my footing and turned turtles. what was holding me and keeping me alive was my figure of 8 abseil device.

i lay there for awhile, too shocked to react and breathing extrememly hard at the same time.  when i finally regained my composure, i realised i was actually hanging upside down and that my crampons were cutting into the other fixed ascend rope.  as i did not want to destroy the rope and face the wrath of the climbers who were jumaring up the same rope, i had to somehow maneuver back into an upright position as fast as possible, which left me all the more breathless.

at that point, i did not remember experiencing fear, as everything happened too fast and i suppose it was too fast even for fear to set in. what an irony – you spend so much time fearing for all the ‘what ifs’, but when something seemingly ‘fearful’ actually happens, you don’t feel the fear at all.