High Altitude Leadership: What the World's Most Forbidding Peaks Teach Us About Success

Chapter 9. Danger #9 THE JOURNEY BEGINS

Location: Mount Shivling, India

Death

The wind races across the mountain threatening to pull us from our ledges at 19,000 feet high. Though encrusted in a thickening layer of ice, the snow still filters into our sleeping bags. Our body heat melts the snowflakes, making the sleeping bags and clothes even wetter. Every hour that passes, the ice grows closer to our skin. Sooner or later, we will freeze and die.

My two friends shiver four feet above me on a table-sized rock, pressed against each other, cocooned in the fetal position. They are hit directly by every gust. To their left, the wall drops 5,000 feet to the next level. Below them on their right, I'm on a ledge no wider than a phone book and am hit only ...