Bear Grylls Quote

My Everest story would be incomplete if I didn’t give final credit to the Sherpas who had risked their lives alongside us every day.Pasang and Ang-Sering still climb together as best friends, under the direction of their Sirdar boss--Kami. The Khumba Icefall specialist, Nima, still carries out his brave task in the jumbled ice maze at the foot of the mountain: repairing and fixing the route through.Babu Chiri, who so bravely helped Mick when he ran out of oxygen under the South Summit, was tragically killed in a crevasse in the Western Cwm several years later. He was a Sherpa of many years’ Everest experience, and was truly one of the mountain’s greats. It was a huge loss to the mountaineering fraternity.But if you play the odds long enough you will eventually lose. That is the harsh reality of high-altitude mountaineering.You can’t keep on top of the world forever. Geoffrey returned to the army, and Neil to his business. His toes never regained their feeling, but he avoided having them amputated. But as they say, Everest always charges some sort of a price, and in his own words--he got lucky.As for Mick, he describes his time on Everest well: In the three months I was away, I was both happier than ever before, and more scared than I ever hope to be again.Ha. That’s also high-altitude mountaineering for you.Thengba, my friend, with whom I spent so much time alone at camp two, was finally given a hearing aid by Henry. Now, for the first time, he can hear properly.Despite our different worlds, we shared a common bond with these wonderful Sherpa men--a friendship that was forged by an extraordinary mountain.Once, when the climber Julius Kugy was asked what sort of person a mountaineer should be, he replied: Truthful, distinguished, and modest.All these Sherpas epitomize this. I made the top with them, and because of their help, I owe them more than I can say.The great Everest writer Walt Unsworth, in his book , gives a vivid description of the characters of the men and women who pit their all on the mountain.I think it is bang on the money:But there are men for whom the unattainable has a special attraction.Usually they are not experts: their ambitions and fantasies are strong enough to brush aside the doubts which more cautious men might have. Determination and faith are their strongest weapons.At best such men are regarded as eccentric; at worst, mad…Three things they all had in common: faith in themselves, great determination, and endurance.If I had to sum up what happened on that journey for me, from the hospital bed to the summit of the world, I tend to think of it as a stumbling journey.Of losing my confidence and my strength--then refinding it. Of seeing my hope and my faith slip away--and then having them rekindled. Ultimately, if I had to pass on one message to my children it would be this: Fortune favors the brave.Most of the time.