The Other Two

The early days on K2 and Kangchenjunga

There was a period of my life when I was obsessed with mountain climbing. I didn’t climb mountains myself, mind you — I had kids and a budget and a creaky back — but I watched other people climb them on TV.

For a while, I mainlined every documentary the TV gods cared to bestow upon me about high-altitude, high-risk alpinism. It was a very particular type of entertainment, designed to fill the viewer with equal parts admiration for the brave climbers and disdain for them because they were taking such risks with their own and others’ health for a fairly pointless endeavor. Now that I think about it, it’s not that different from a lot of reality TV, which invites the viewer to feel simultaneous jealousy and judgment of the people on the screen.

Anyway, I watched hour after hour of people freezing their butts off in base camp or having discussions about the ethics of using supplemental oxygen, or making life-altering decisions under excruciating circumstances. I eventually tired of the gen…