Sublime

By the start of 2019, around 60 climbers had died there in total and it carried possibly the scariest survival rate in high-altitude mountaineering, killing 38 per cent of mountaineers brave enough to attempt it.

In the aftermath of Seema’s solo rescue, I’d learned a serious lesson: by using oxygen during my expedition, it had been possible to save her. Without it, the chances of me summoning up enough energy to conduct a rescue would have been slim to none. For that reason, from now on, I was climbing above the higher camps on an 8,000-er with bottled air,