Can You Ever Rest?

No one likes waiting. Right?I hate waiting, I hate waiting in lines. I especially hate waiting in line at McDonalds when there are people who don’t know what they want to order. This is Micky D’s people, if you don’t know what’s on the menu, there’s something really wrong.

But this is all neither here nor there, because like I said, everyone hates waiting.

But I know now, the ultimate in the “I hate waiting” game. I now know, what the worst waiting circumstance is, beyond all waiting circumstances.

And that my friends, is waiting to climb to the summit of Everest.

I have this odd fascination with mountain climbing, eh, not really mountain climbing, Everest climbing. Or K-2 climbing. I think because its so beyond the realm of what I would put myself through, it fascinates me to see something I know I’ll never be a part of. I read “Into Thin Air” Jon Krakauer’s book about his Everest attempt (the truly deadly one they made into an Imax movie) in about 4 minutes.

So I’ve been watching this great show on Discovery about this group trying to summit. They have state of the art cameras and equipment, it’s a viewpoint no one’s ever seen before. These men have been on the mountain for weeks, acclimating, freezing, dying, frostbite, etc. Their bodies completely shut down, their digestive systems stops working, people break ribs from coughing on a daily basis. The whole thing is a stinkin’ nightmare.

Most of the team has made their way to the summit, they’ve gotten to The Second Step. The Second Step is in the “death zone” of Everest, where they can only spend a short amount of time due to oxygen and cold. The step is about 400 feet away from the summit (which will still take another 2-3 hours to climb) and there’s a traffic jam. A goddamn traffic jam! These people have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, risked their lives, left their families for months, they’ve been climbing for 8 hours in 40 below weather, they’re 400 feet away from the top of the tallest mountain in the world, and they can’t summit because there’s a fucking traffic jam. Inexperienced climbers hold everyone up, and their minds are unclear, altitude sickness is creeping in, they can’t make decisions, and they stop. Boom.

What’s even worse, are the people who make it to the summit and hit the traffic jam on the way down. They say the deadlieset part of Everest is not getting up the damn thing, but getting down. You’ve been literally freezing cold for 12 hours, no adrenaline, no food, and your oxygen tank only has so much in it before it empties. And the climbers get stuck in the death zone for hours, waiting for inept climbers to try and get down. You will literally die if people do not get moving.

I will no longer complain about waiting for a Quarter Pounder.

Or maybe I will, but not out loud.