Iceaxecrampon

......Other high-level climbers, he says, used to tell their parents they’d gone hill walking when they were on the north face of the Eiger. Joe Simpson was scrupulously honest with his. “I told them everything. I told them about the deaths and the accidents. Mountaineering is a very selfish thing to do, a very difficult thing. I tried to tell them: This is my passion. This is life-enhancing. It defines me. It isn’t just climbing a silly hill and getting killed in a stupid way.”