I am not a climber. I have climbed only one, rather small, mountain. I climbed with a couple of friends in order to see the mountain goats that live in the area of the peak. I am not particularly brave at heights and sometimes the fear grabs me with the feeling that I will leap out of my body and it will fall, plummeting, as I watch it from some timeless place.

This feeling was particularly strong after we had climbed the peak, visited with the goats (hand feeding these wild creatures who were attracted closer to us by the salt in our urine), and then prepared to glissade down the snow-covered slopes. Some of you may have had the experience of glissading, but I imagine most of you have not.

When climbing, as opposed to walking, up a mountain, you need crampons and an ice axe to assure your footing. Kick your toe into the snow and plant your axe on the ascent, but on the descent the thrill is to slide on your backside down the snowfield until you need to slow or stop by using the ice axe. When desiring to stop you abruptly roll over and forcefully plant the ice axe into the snow. Ideally, this brings you to the desired arrest.

I dream of the mountains and have lived surrounded by them most of my life. When I read Jon Krakauer's account of the disastrous Everest Expedition of 1996, "Into Thin Air", I was overwhelmed, as I assume were all who read it. It is a tragic, overwhelming story. The telling of the guide Rob Hall's last hours close to the summit is a story that will make you ache long after the words have faded. It does me. That he was able to communicate from near the peak of Everest with his pregnant wife in New Zealand via satellite phone says more than words about the times in which we live. The song "Ghosts of the Ascent" (see lyrics below) carries all the emotion and insight I can bring to the idea of the conquest of the Earth.

I remember my father telling me the story of George Leigh Mallory's ascent of Everest in June of 1924 (he never mentioned Mallory's climbing companion, Andrew Irvine), and how it was never known if Mallory actually reached the summit because he (they) became enshrouded in cloud and was never seen again, until he was discovered, still on the mountain, in 1999. In this attempt the myth was born. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay would ascend Everest by a different route in 1953, and others would and will follow. The nature of myth is mystery, however, and it remains to Mallory, as the original defier of the gods and the odds, that all who contemplate the ascent of Jomolungma, the Mother Goddess of the Earth, must eventually return.

Please follow these paths to Online Magazine's stories about Mallory and Irvine, and the tragic disasters of 1996.

http://www.outsidemag.com/magazine/1099/199910mallory1.

But there is more here than just a story, as profoundly moving as the two, somehow intertwining, stories are. The first story of the 1996 tragedy did not affect me so profoundly until I had read the second story about Mallory and Irvine. In the imagining of their ascent I had a most palpable feeling of being there in some strange way: Again that feeling of my soul leaping out of my body at those terrible heights.

Eric Simonson, the leader of the Mallory/Irvine Expedition, says, "climbing is not about death, it is about life?" That may be so, but why then all the references to combat and death: "Assaulting the mountain; the death zone; conquering the summit, etc."? And why didn't the people of those awesome mountains ever consider climbing their peaks? I doubt it was because they were not capable of doing so.

Why were the Europeans, with their intense compulsions to explore and conquer the world, the first to attempt the assault of the Mother Goddess of the Earth?

I realize there is an intense thrill of life that occurs when one pushes the envelope closer and closer to death. The past is prelude and perhaps all this "conquering" has a real purpose written deeply into our genetic mission. Perhaps not.

I was searching for a photograph that would speak to the voices of inner longing that accompany "Ghosts of the Ascent" when I stumbled upon Wally Berg's beautiful photo of Everest as the obelisk of the Earth. The amazing pyramid that the shadow of Jomolungma makes at dawn says something far beyond my simple ability with language.

Wally Berg knew Rob Hall well and climbed with him to the top of Everest. I also suspect that he knows George Leigh Mallory well, though not in the same way. He is a great climber and photographer. I am honored that he allowed me to present his photograph with "Ghosts of the Ascent".

I hope to make "Ghosts of the Ascent" a work in progress: Changing it from time to time by adding other players' contributions. It is a gift to you. Please feel free to download it and please pass it on to your friends. It is as deep a gift from the heart as I can give you. The greatest mountain lies within. Climb on. Peace.

Danny O' Keefe
September 2000

©2000 Bicameral Songs


Ghosts of the Ascent  
(D. O'Keefe)

Rob Hall breaks up on the satellite phone
Near the highest point on Earth
His life will soon be over
He knows now what it's worth

To the woman who carries his unborn child
He speaks with the softest touch
"I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart.
Please don't worry too much."

The life he loves more than his own
Has a voice he will never hear
It's midnight now on the mountain
Very cold, and clear

Shortly before Time slips away
In a fade of reverie
Climbs a shadow from out of the mist
It is George Leigh Mallory

There are many who will follow
The paths where once we went
Some of them, too, will falter
Ghosts of the Ascent

We have left our lives behind us
To cling to our Mother's breast
Here at the height of ice and snow
They call Mt. Everest

Why did we brave this dangerous plane
Most would never dare?
Mallory's voice, a crystalline chime
Replies, "Because it's there"

We all step upon the summit
When half the climb is through
With a maddened exhilaration
Known to precious few

Of love and courage much is said
But it's wisdom here that saves
And all who have forgotten
Rest in lonely, icy graves

Gone where all the others
In their desperate plummets went
Embraced by Jomolungma
Ghosts of the Ascent

The greed of conquest
Is the most dangerous drug of all
It leads us to imagined heights
From which we can only fall

Rob Hall thinks of his unborn child
Right before the end
As Mallory reaches out his hand
"You're one of us now, my friend"

And the idea that they failed
Is one I fear they would resent
Climbing ever towards heaven
Ghosts of the Ascent
Ghosts of the Ascent

Oh, God is the greatest magician
With a magic so perfectly rare
As to pluck us out of Infinity
Just to vanish us into thin air

©2000 Bicameral Songs