The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
‘Tears were flooding my face’
What it feels like to stand atop Mount Everest
In 1991 and again in 1994, Canadian adventurer Jamie Clarke came agonizingly close to reaching the summit of Mount Everest. Both times, he was forced to turn back.
When he reached the roof of the world for the first time in 1997, Clarke expected to feel triumphant.
“I thought there would be that classic fist pumped into the air, hurrah,” Clarke said. “There was anything but. First came the realization that there was no more up, no more struggle. Ultimately for me, the most profound emotion up there was peace. I didn't know that kind of peace was available to a person, and I surrendered to it.”
Not entirely, of course. An experienced climber who has summited the highest peak on all seven continents, Clarke remained keenly aware of the task still ahead: getting safely down.
It's not like, 'Oh great, party time'
“When you're on the summit, you're only halfway there,” Clarke said. “It's the round-trip that counts in this crazy mountain-climbing thing. It's not like, ‘Oh great, party time.' It was a different kind of relief, a deeper sense of emotional release that you've finally done it.
“Tears were flooding my face and immediately freezing on my cheeks,” Clarke added. “Tears of joy and tears of relief, tears of realizing that peace.”
Clarke spent about seven or eight minutes enjoying the view and snapping some photos before beginning his descent. When he reached the summit again in 2010, the experience was “entirely different.” With all the anxiety of making it gone, he was better able to savour the ascent, and his time at the top.
“The second time I went up, I spent well over an hour and a half up there, kind of pushing the envelope for time that you should be up high,” Clarke said. “We were feeling strong and the conditions were stable. I did that on purpose because I really wanted to sit in that moment. You work so hard for some of these things and then when they arrive, we push by.”