Mount Everest Essays - Beck Weathers, Mount Everest, Jon Krakauer

Mount Everest The speaker's words silenced the audience as he began, ?On the night of May 10, 1996 a blizzard swept over Mount Everest, striking more than thirty mountain climbers with heavy snow, subzero temperatures, and unbelievably strong winds. In the next twenty-four hours, eight of the climbers, including three professional guides were dead. This night would become the most ill fated attempt ever to summit Mount Everest.? ?Among these climbers was a 49-year old Dallas pathologist and an amateur climber, Dr. Beck Weathers, who was left to die in the icy storm 300 yards from his camp. Miraculously, Dr. Weathers survived and came back from his ordeal to speak of his experiences, and to tell us about some valuable lessons he has learned. Let's welcome Dr. Beck Weathers.? I watched and listened as this man swayed his disfigured arms and explained that he had scaled the world's largest heights and yet, still had not been at peace with himself. He had wanted more ?courageous? success, because he had conquered all but the grand Mount Everest. The drive for more accomplishment and the need to be more ?courageous? had persuaded Beck to follow the 1996 expedition. Beck sobbed as he stated that on May 10, 1996, he had realized, as he was near death, that what he had thought to be courageous was truly a relentless pursuit of success and goals and ambitions. He had risked his life in a cowardly and selfish way for his own fortune. Dr. Weathers had found that his irrational triumph of desire over sensibility was the most pathetic feat he was to face. Risking your life, such as mountain climbers do, is not an act of courage because it is backed by low self-esteem and is in pursuit for irrational goals and selfish success. Courage is denoted by Encarta Encyclopedia '96 dictionary as the quality of the mind that enables one to face danger with confidence and resolution. Danger is defined as exposure to harm and should be faced with self-assurance. Beck Weathers exposed himself to danger because of his lack of self-assurance or inner peace. Beck disclosed to the audience that had he been surer of himself as a person, his ideals of achieving everything might not have been so harsh and ridiculous. Unfortunately it had taken Beck a near death experience to drag out of life what was really important to him. Dr. Weathers explained that the climbers had set out for fame of scaling the highest peak in the world. The climb had been in pursuit of irrational goals that had lead many to their deaths and Beck to eight major operations and several minor ones to rebuild his left hand and nose, while his right hand was amputated from the severe frostbite. Even Jon Krakauer, a fellow climber of Beck's on the 1996 expedition, stated in his novel Into Thin Air that there were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument. Beck continued his story and told us that there are blocks of ice the size of multistory buildings that teeter and fall, wiping out everything below them, and the air is so thin that if a person was instantaneously transported there, on Everest, that he or she would immediately die. Climbers eventually reach heights where the lack of air is so great that they cannot eat, drink, or sleep. ?The drive to climb is extremely irrational. It defies logic. ? (Mudge, 2). Encarta ?96 defines selfishness as thinking only of oneself. Dr. Weathers noted that of all the thirty climbers, many had spouses and children, including himself, in which their headstrong desires had forgotten to consider. The determined, stubborn climbers neglected to think of what possible consequences could have or did come, and how they could have effected or did effect their families. Krakauer states in his novel that Everest seems to have poisoned many lives. Relationships have foundered. The wife of one of the victims has been hospitalized for depression, and many families have been torn apart from the strain of coping with the expedition's aftereffects. Instead of