Joni Mitchell Both Sides and tragic mountain climbing link

Youtube ^ | Joni Mitchell

[MtnClimber]

I have been climbing in conditions like that and consider myself fortunate to have experienced it and to have lived through it. The song is great too.

[Paladin2]

&s there an equivalent to “Excelsior” for decents?

[Enchante]

Awesome! I met Kurt Diemberger at a slideshow he gave just a couple of years after the K2 disaster. He ended with an eloquent memorial to his climbing friends who perished, saying he and they were all doing what they loved.

Thanks for this thread, and the song!

[Enchante]

I used to do climbs in the USA (Tetons etc.) but never sought to go to greater heights. I love the mountains but getting into thinner and thinner air just had no appeal to me, with or without oxygen supplements.

[lee martell]

Joni Mitchell is a musical genius. I know that word is overused today, but she deserves it. I include her lyrics and prose along with the music. They are welded together as finished pieces of melody and melodrama. I was just listening to her album Hejira from about 1977. So many good songs to hear on it. “Coyote, Amelia, Furry Sings the Blues, Hejira and A Song For Sharon.

Joni cannot sing in public anymore, having been stopped after a brain aneurysm in 2015. She uses a wheelchair too.
Even the Queen of folk rock, with her unusual acoustic chords, her pure harmonies with just the right touch of discordance is but a fragile human, like the rest of us.
Fated and spiritually fey.

[MtnClimber]

I have been climbing in the Himalayas on an expedition to Cho Oyu which is a 14,000 meter peak just west of Everest. I got sick at around 20,000 ft and had to go down. The highest peak I have climbed was Cerro Aconcagua (nearly 23,000 ft) by the difficult Polish Glacier route. That climb took 3 weeks start to finish and I lost 25 lbs in weight on the climb.

[MtnClimber]

I could see the curvature of the Earth from the summit!

[MtnClimber]

I have climbed to 23,000 ft on Cerro Aconcagua without oxygen and the trip to Cho Oyu (around 26,000 ft)in the Himalayas we did not have oxygen. Half of our team of 10 made the summit.

[doorgunner69]

I love the mountains but getting into thinner and thinner air just had no appeal to me, with or without oxygen supplements.

There is that temperature thing, as well.

Wife and I chose to retire to warm climes. Even the fog of SoCal was eating at us after a while.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

"on an expedition to Cho Oyu which is a 14,000 meter peak"

I think you must mean 14,000 feet??? 14,000 meters is 46,000 feet.
 

[Forgotten Amendments]

If you can listen to CIRCLE GAME & not cry, you are stronger than me.

[Liberty Valance]

bttt

[moovova]

“Court and Spark” will always be one of my favorite albums.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...Julie died later that night, possibly from HACE,..."

I wonder if her body is still there.

Imagine having to share a tiny tent with 5 other people in order to survive, and one of them up and dies next to you in the night.

[1Old Pro]

Even the Queen of folk rock, with her unusual acoustic chords, her pure harmonies with just the right touch of discordance is but a fragile human, like the rest of us.

Indeed, Keith Emerson committed suicide because he could no longer play the keyboards.

[T-Bone Texan]

"...I think you must mean 14,000 feet??? 14,000 meters is 46,000 feet...."

Maybe it just felt like 46,000 feet!

The highest I've climbed is 14,495 feet, Whitney. Did that one twice.

There is another mountain just to the north called Mt. Tyndall. While not as high as Whitney the trek is a lot longer and more difficult, so it gets a lot less traffic. Right next to it is another 14er, (Mt. Williamson) which is very convenient.

I tried to climb both on a solo attempt. Those were the mountains that broke me. Sudden hail, clogged water filter, nonstop bloody nose, and came very close to getting a direct lightning hit.

I finally had to go back home, defeated.

Never again did I attempt something on that scale, but I am glad I did that stuff when my body was hale and healthy.

cherish those memories.

[Paladin2]

Mt. Evans, Pikes Peak and Mt. Washington have roads almost all the way to the top.

Why hike when you can drive?

[anton]

Persons who risk the lives of their rescuers and sherpas for their own self glorification are better dead.

[T-Bone Texan]

Yeah, and Pike’s Peak has a cog railroad that goes to the top!