My name is Jean Gauthier. Ever since I was a
little boy I loved to climb things. You name it and I would, at the very
least, attempt to climb it. My brother and I would play a game called
“Hot Lava.” We would climb all around the house trying not to touch the
floor below us.
Many years have passed and now Adam and I
have taken the “Hot Lava” game to a whole new level. Just last month we
both climbed a mountain in our hometown called Fall Hill. Though the
height of the mountain wasn’t that impressive, the skill it took to
climb the steep side of the mountain was good practice.
The big talk around the world was Mt. Everest
and how the Tibetans were going to open up the mountain to foreigners.
Adam had said to me, “Jean, wouldn’t we have a rousing good time if we
climbed that big mountain together?” I thought, “Sure, we could do it.”
Climbing seemed to come so naturally to us.
Adam and I worked at a hardware store so we had access to the most
updated equipment we would need to go on our mountain climbing
challenge. We listened to the radio for months about climbers who were
getting ready to go up into the mountain for the first time.
In 1921, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine,
two British chaps, were on their way up. How my brother and I wished it
were us going up instead of them! Adam and I worked very hard for the
next few months to save the money we would need to get the gear to go on
such a mountain climbing adventure.
We got small air tanks to put on our backs
because the altitudes would make breathing almost impossible. We bought
ropes, ice picks, and boots with metal spikes coming out from the bottom
to help with climbing. A durable tent capable of keeping us warm in
weather as cold as 20 below zero and winds as high as 70 miles per hour
completed our equipment.
The year was 1923 and at long last my brother
and I were ready to go to Tibet and start our climb to the top of the
highest mountain in the world. The plane ride was less than comfortable,
but it really didn’t matter because we knew in just a few hours we would
be going through with our life long dream to climb Mt. Everest.
We got a guide to bring us to the bottom of
the mountain, who would camp out there until we came back down. The
first part of the climb was really just a hike, but then we were at the
point of no return. With the ropes to hold us in place, we tried to claw
our way up the side of the mountain.
Two hours went by and we were feeling a
little tired, but we agreed to press on to make our goal of half the
mountain in just one day. The air was thin and the night sky was moving
in much too fast for us to keep up with the climb.
At last we found the perfect cliff to set up
the tent and cook a little food. We went through the gear to be sure
that nothing was lost during the climb. Everything seemed to be in order
and we laid down in our sleeping bags while we talked to each other
about how great it felt to be going through with our dreams to climb
this beautiful mountain. Morning seemed to take forever to arrive but
eventually we were on our way again.
The view was so breathtaking that I found it
hard to concentrate on anything else. A good tug on the rope from my
brother helped me out and onward we went. Night seemed to come even
faster today than yesterday so we stopped and set up camp again. We were
talking about the two British fellows and how they never came back down.
We agreed that it just wasn’t a subject we should talk about other than
to assure one another that we would not push ourselves that far.
The wind was so hard that night that very
little sleep was allowed. We had our goals set on reaching the top by
the end of the day. Our air tanks went on at this time because we were
so high up. It was very hard to talk or breathe. I had lost some of my
rope when I lost my footing, so Adam had to start the climb off today.
We came to what we thought were the tops
until the clouds cleared. There was still a lot more to go and the tanks
were out of air, or rather would be on the way back down, so I took out
my knife and carved our initials into the side of the mountain to show
how far up we had made it. We had made our dreams come true just by
making it that far, so we started back down the mountain knowing that
some day soon we would return to finish our dreams.
The big talk around the world was Mt. Everest
and how the Tibetans were going to open up the mountain to foreigners.
Adam had said to me, “Jean, wouldn’t we have a rousing good time if we
climbed that big mountain together?” I thought, “Sure, we could do it.”