I arrived at basecamp with a bad case of bronchitis and that made the start of the 2007 expedition tough. I fought my way back to health by dropping replica tag heuer Monza Calibre 36 watch back down to Pheriche but I missed the first round of acclimatization with the rest of the team. Once I got back to BC, Mingma and I went up on our own to Camp One and then onto Camp Two. After I returned from Camp Two, I developed Giardia but unfortunately it took a long time to figure out what was going on so by the time, I was finally treated for it, I’d lost significant weight and strength. Of course, it was not the ending that anyone wanted for my climb but I realized I didn’t have the resiliency or reserve to be safe up high.
I knew I could have dragged myself back up to Camp Two but I didn’t want to put anyone on my team or Mingma in danger because of my weakness. I was hugely disappointed as I had trained so hard, mortgaged my house, and had my entire province cheering me on, but no mountain summit is worth dying for and I wanted to live to climb replica Tag Heuer Navitimer Heritage watches another day, so I turned my back on the climb and made friends with disappointment. That’s one of the major lessons I stress when doing presentations is that Everest taught me to “risk disappointment.” So many times it’s tempting to stay where we know we can do something but I think sometimes we need to risk disappointment to go after our big dreams and big goals. Q: Everest is part of your 7 Summits goal.
What drives this objective?I started the Seven Summits as a way of gaining more climbing experience in preparation for Everest but then I realized that they were becoming great teachers for me. In Buddhism, there are the Six Paramitas and one day as I reflected on both my climbs and my Buddhist path (I began my Buddhist training at the replica Tag Heuer Aerospace Advantage watches same time as I was training for Denali), I realized that while climbing the Seven Summits, I was receiving direct and embodied teachings/learnings of the paramitas (generosity, patience, discipline, persistence, wisdom, meditation).
