Overcoming Adversity
Dear Lara,
I received your letter describing the difficulties you are facing. I felt compelled to write this reply to you today regarding the subject of overcoming adversity and my experiences with survival and beating the odds in doing so.
As you recall in 1985, Simon, one of my good friends, and I went on a journey to conquer the Western face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. However, everything did not go quite to plan. Simon and I made it to the summit with no great difficulty but, as we were making our way back down, I happened to break my leg. This meant that from then onwards Simon had to pull me down, as I could not descend with a broken leg and the pain was unbearable. Unfortunately, I fell off a cliff and floated in mid air relying solely on the rope and Simon. To be honest, I felt like I was going to die at any moment and that we would be like any other of those mountaineers that attempted to climb the Siula Grande before us. However, that was not to be the case. As I was lying in mid air trying to put my weight onto something, I started falling very quickly into a crevasse that was straight under me. I fell more or less 150 feet and I felt very vulnerable indeed at that point. I was quite surprised to still be alive. I had a broken leg and I fell into a crevasse. As I looked around I thought to myself this was going to be nearly impossible to get out of. When I saw the rope coming from the entry hole I would have thought that Simon was on the end of that rope. Therefore, if I pulled the rope it would have come tight onto Simon’s body. However, it did not. It just kept coming and coming until the rope ended. As soon as I saw the rope, I knew it had been cut and I knew that from there on I was on my own. I knew my life relied entirely on my decisions and actions. As I was in the crevasse thinking about a way to get out, I felt very lonely and to a certain extent quite scared. I was only 25 and
I received your letter describing the difficulties you are facing. I felt compelled to write this reply to you today regarding the subject of overcoming adversity and my experiences with survival and beating the odds in doing so.
As you recall in 1985, Simon, one of my good friends, and I went on a journey to conquer the Western face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes. However, everything did not go quite to plan. Simon and I made it to the summit with no great difficulty but, as we were making our way back down, I happened to break my leg. This meant that from then onwards Simon had to pull me down, as I could not descend with a broken leg and the pain was unbearable. Unfortunately, I fell off a cliff and floated in mid air relying solely on the rope and Simon. To be honest, I felt like I was going to die at any moment and that we would be like any other of those mountaineers that attempted to climb the Siula Grande before us. However, that was not to be the case. As I was lying in mid air trying to put my weight onto something, I started falling very quickly into a crevasse that was straight under me. I fell more or less 150 feet and I felt very vulnerable indeed at that point. I was quite surprised to still be alive. I had a broken leg and I fell into a crevasse. As I looked around I thought to myself this was going to be nearly impossible to get out of. When I saw the rope coming from the entry hole I would have thought that Simon was on the end of that rope. Therefore, if I pulled the rope it would have come tight onto Simon’s body. However, it did not. It just kept coming and coming until the rope ended. As soon as I saw the rope, I knew it had been cut and I knew that from there on I was on my own. I knew my life relied entirely on my decisions and actions. As I was in the crevasse thinking about a way to get out, I felt very lonely and to a certain extent quite scared. I was only 25 and