Nothing but sky above and unbroken views all around – there is something so glorious about getting to the natural end of a climb
I’ll start by saying this: the Sherpa people do not get enough credit. They have been climbing Everest since for ever, like it’s nothing. The man who has climbed Everest the most times is Kami Rita Sherpa (24 times) who I imagine files his nails as he does it. Lhakpa Sherpa holds the record for most summits by a woman (9) and, incredibly, now resides in the US and works a minimum wage job at 7-Eleven.
I doubt I will be summiting Everest (never say never!) but I was schooled in climbing early on. Both my parents were climbers (my mother even free-climbed while pregnant which… maybe don’t do that). I reached the top of Moel Famau in Wales, aged three (OK, it’s 555m high to Everest’s 8,850 metres, but it was baby steps, quite literally). At seven, I topped Snowdon (1,085m). I crawled up and cried a lot. I recall being extremely unimpressed by a crappy cafe on the top, a little like when I first went on the internet and it was just a browser window rather than an actual portal to another world.
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