Everest

Walking Crunch
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

The Photo

I took this a couple of weeks ago with my cell phone. Normally, when we walk with Crunch, Judi gives me the leash so that Crunch and I have a chance to bond. (I get to take care of him in February and March while Judi and Paul are in Africa.) But on one particular street on our walk, there are a couple of very loud, very angry dogs who, when we pass, hurl themselves at the metal fence all the while barking madly. Crunch usually freaks out when this happens, and Judi wanted to take the leash so that she might to a bit of training with him in regards to what kind of response she expects from him when he is faced with angry, insane dogs.

You can see that she has Crunch on a really short leash there as we approached the yard.

Today's Quote

Let me do a bit of set up:

Recently, I've been reading a lot about climbing Mt. Everest. Having exhausted the extensive reputable online resources, I went out and bought several books on the subject, including Jon Krakauer's famous book Into Thin Air. Krakauer was a writer on assignment from the Santa Fe offices of Outside magazine, sent to climb Mt. Everest and expected to return with a feature article about the commercialization that was ruining Everest. He instead ending up writing about the day he summited the mountain, the same day that ended up being the deadliest day in the history of Everest, when eight people died in a single day. (At the time, the fatality rate for those attempting to climb Everest was about one in four.)

So I'm about a quarter of the way through Krakauer's book. He's in a helicopter on the way to Nepal, and he pauses the narrative to pull of quote from Thomas Hornbein's book Everest: The West Ridge. Hornbein was one of two men to traverse the mountain--that is, climb up one side, go over the summit, and descend the other side.

Of waiting to attempt the climb, Hornbein wrote:

There was loneliness too, as the sun set, but only rarely now did doubts return. Then I felt sinkingly as though my whole life lay behind me. Once on the mountain I knew (or trusted) that this would give way to total absorption with the task at hand. But at times I wondered if I had not come a long way only to find that what I really sought was something I had left behind.

The Day

I was up until very late last night, reading tales of Everest, so I was too tired to take Sam on his usual morning walk. Instead, I let him run around the tiny yard and then come back and crawl onto the bed with me, where we slept and slept. We went to meet Judi and Kelly for a long walk, then had another nap together on the bed. Then I was off to yoga. Now Sam is slumbering beside the bed and I am hurriedly trying to finish writing this too long and pointless entry so that I can get back to Krakauer's book.