101 Things #6 - Everest

For many the ascent of high mountains is a great and memorable achievement. The higher, more remote and more dangerous, then the more satisfying. Naturally, climbing Mount Everest is number one on the bucket list of anyone who goes in for this sort of thing. It seems fair that I should, as part of my continuing series 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die state my position on this matter. It is simple. I will not attempt to

Climb Mount Everest

I have been up the odd high place in my youth. But a poor sense of balance and a inability to deal with exposure - that is, not such a fear of heights but a fear of falling - have always conspired to keep me on the horizontal, albeit happy to let my eyes roam over the peaks and to admire those able to find a route up every towering face, overhang, chimney and crumbling ridge towards a summit.

In any case, Mount Everest has become a joke. The pictures taken earlier this year of hundreds of climbers queueing to scramble up and around the Hilary Step, and the deaths that occurred when bad weather closed in trapping many high up, mean that for the tourist climber this mountain has become a bit like the Night Watch at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum or the Mona Lisa at the Louvre - you desperately want to see them to appreciate them as paintings, but not if there are crowds of selfie-snapping, "let's tick this one off the list", casual visitors clogging up the room ahead of you. Those who are very rich will always find some way to climb it, with teams of experienced Sherpas to drag them up the hard bits and keep them well supplied with oxygen and hot tea. Real climbers will find better challenges elsewhere.

One of the most inspiring climbing books in my collection is The Shining Mountain by Peter Boardman. With Joe Tasker, he climbed Changabang in 1976, forcing a route up the hitherto unclimbed and, for many unclimbable, west face of the mountain. Just the two of them, no support team, no porters, no cameramen and no tourists. I would rather read, and marvel, about such exploits than even consider approaching Base Camp at Everest let alone thinking of climbing it.

 Sadly Boardman and Tasker were lost on attempting the North-East ridge of Everest a few years later.

The Climb-Everest trope is really a symbol for many areas of human endeavour. First considered impossible, then something only for madmen, then attempted and eventually attained by a few at the very top of their game, at last they become something to be commercialised and owned and subject to permits. Is there much point for those of us who are not, and will never be, anywhere near to the abilities of the trailblazers to consider emulating them slavishly? I think I can answer that. No. Only if the doing of it is fun and gasping for breath at 8,000m with sheer drops on either side and rocks crumbling under your feet is not fun. On this one I wish to be excused.

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I had intended to finish here but, the day after I drafted this piece, I glanced at the digital Guardian on my tablet and the following story was prominent.

I didn't bother reading the details just in case they conflicted with my instantly-formed assumptions. It seems to be saying that you too can effectively climb Everest if you climb the equivalent amount of height.

Well, this a game-changer. The Base Camp at Everest, that almost everyone uses, (the one in Nepal), is at 5,364 metres. The summit is 8,848. We merely need to ascend some 3,484 metres, 11,430 feet and we too will have climbed Everest. The Guardian piece is about finding various mountains in Britain to climb. Seems like a lot of hard work. I reckon that going up my stairs at home will do the job if I plan sufficiently.

Each of my stair risers is 8 inches and there are 14, with a little half landing after the third. So a full ascent raises me 9.33 feet. I need make just 1,225 ascents. Easy. Say I do just 50 a day, then the job is done in a month, with time off

It's early days but I think I shall make my Base Camp at the foot of the stairs, near the living room door. Of course I shall have to acclimatise by walking in from the kitchen a few times and bringing essential supplies for a stockpile. A couple of cereal bars should help. I won't need the Sherpas (a.k.a. Mrs Commuter) for this part which is just as well as she usually mutters something about having to go into the garden when this sort of project surfaces. The little landing can be Camp 1 and one of the stairs further up can be Camp 2. From there I am confident I can push on to the summit and return without hazard, provided the weather holds. I shall make these ascents alone and without oxygen. Out there it will be just me and the mountain stairs.

Cynics may point out that in no way am I simulating the sheer effort of climbing at real altitude, nor the difficulties of traversing huge crevasses and swarming up ice cliffs. In an way, I must concede that technically they are right; however exactly the same objection could be made to the exploits of the man in the Guardian story (one Graham Hoyland). Was he daunted by the criticism? No, he climbed on, through mist and light showers, sometimes more than three whole hours walk from a pub. And, glancing at the very end of the article, I see he got a book deal out of it. That's the spirit. I am expecting no less than a two hour TV documentary, preferably narrated by my fellow extreme climber Brian Blessed, and several chat show appearances on the back of it.

 Ah, I've just been handed a note by my Editor which informs me that Hoyland actually walked the full height of Everest measured from sea level. The bastard. That's a full 3,100 ascents! I'm having second thoughts about all this.