Bear Grylls Quote

We were eighteen thousand vertical feet above sea level, in the mouth of Everest’s killer jaws. I noticed my hand was shaking as I fumbled with the ropes through thick mittens.It was pure fatigue.An hour later, it felt like we were still no closer to base camp, and it was starting to get late.I glanced nervously around the icefall. We should be meeting back up with Nima somewhere around here, as arranged. I scanned around but couldn’t see him.I dug my crampons into the snow, leaned back against the face to get my breath back, and waited for Mick behind me.He was still ten yards away, stepping carefully across the broken blocks of ice. We had been in this crevasse-ridden frozen death trap for more than nine hours, and we were both moving very laboriously.Watching him, I knew that if the mighty Mick was moving this slowly then we were indeed on a big mountain.I stood up and took a few more careful steps, testing the ice with each movement. I reached the end of one length of rope, unclipped, breathed hard, and grabbed the next rope.I held it loosely in my hand, looked around, took another deep breath, then clipped my karabiner into the line.Then all of a sudden, I felt the ground beneath me twitch.I looked down and saw a crack in the ice shoot between my feet, with a quiet, slicing sound.I didn’t dare move.The world seemed to stand still.The ice cracked once more behind me, then with no warning, it just dropped away beneath me, and I was falling.Falling down this lethal black scar in the glacier that had no visible bottom. Suddenly I smashed against the gray wall of the crevasse.The force threw me to the other side, crushing my shoulder and arm against the ice. Then I jerked to a halt as the thin rope that I had just clipped into held me.I am spinning round and round in free air. The tips of my crampons catch the edge of the crevasse wall.I can hear my screams echoing in the darkness below.Shards of ice keep raining down on me, and one larger bit smashes into my skull, jerking my head backward. I lose consciousness for a few precious seconds.I blink back into life to see the last of the ice falling away beneath me into the darkness.My body gently swings around on the end of the rope, and all is suddenly eerily silent.Adrenaline is coursing through my body, and I find myself shaking in waves of convulsions.I scream up at Mick, and the sound echoes around the walls. I looked up to the ray of light above, then down to the abyss below.I clutch frantically for the wall, but it is glassy smooth. I swing my ice axe at it wildly, but it doesn’t hold, and my crampons just screech across the ice.In desperation I cling to the rope above me and look up.I am twenty-three years old and about to die.Again.