Nadav Ben Yehuda

When you climb you are alone.

 I believe that when it comes to success rates on extreme altitude mountains, It is ultimately about how long your body will accept the abuse from your own mind.

As I anticipate reaching the summit, I dare not look ahead any more because I don’t want to know how far I have left to go. Some of the time I feel full of purpose and self-controlled in face of the storm; But at other moments, I am filled with confussion and hopelessness - trying desperately to keep from falling apart. Every 10 or 15 steps, I collapse into the ice to rest, then crawl on again – obeying the law of inertia.

My mind seems to have ceased to function. I simply go on climbing automatically. The fact that I am at the last part of achieving my formidable goal – is completely forgotten. It is now me against myself, in the battle were losing is already happening, and winning is simply a state of mind.  When you reach the summit – when there's no more up – you stand up there, wanting nothing more than to be safely back down on safe ground. In this almost airless void, no one lasts long. It is not just that there is insufficient oxygen; there is also too little human warmth, too little sense, too little love. I spend only few minutes on high summits because I know that the sort of luck I seek during the climb – good weather, little wind, strength, safety and sanity – only exists at lower altitudes. ​ My name is Nadav Ben Yehuda. And I look Up.​