“What used to be an adventure is now just a vacation.”
Joel Achenbach in a fine article about Hilary he wrote in 1992.
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“What used to be an adventure is now just a vacation.”
Joel Achenbach in a fine article about Hilary he wrote in 1992.
Comments are closed.
You don’t have to do much reading about Everest to realize that those who call it a vacation are seriously kidding themselves. Yes, Everest is much more accessible now than it was when Hillary and Norgay first climbed it. But it is still tremendously time-consuming, difficult, painful and dangerous to climb the mountain. It takes a tenacity and courage, not to mention physical condition, that the vast majority of people don’t have.
I really admire Hillary for being the first to the top of Everest. But I found his grumbling in his later years to be poor sportsmanship. He was the first to blaze the trail, but he didn’t want anyone else to follow him down it. Why does he get to decide how hard something should be? Once things are done a few times…they get easier. And easier. It’s just progress. It’s easier to get most places in 2008 than it was in 1953. And the improvements came to the Himalayas like they came everywhere else. Hillary’s attitude was a little too “get off my mountain, you damn kids” for me.