Notes from a summit that was not the summit

At two in the afternoon, clouds closed on the ridge. We had been climbing for eleven hours. The summit was close enough to see, and far enough, in that light, to be a different mountain.

Mountaineering literature is full of the pull of the top. Guides call it summit fever, the sunk-cost logic that turns a tired person into a reckless one. The most important skill, they say, is deciding in advance when you will turn around, and honouring it.

The turn-back time

Ours was one o'clock, agreed over breakfast. When we missed it by an hour, the youngest of us said so out loud. It was awkward. Then it was the end of the argument.

We reached the hut as the first snow fell. Nobody mentioned the summit that night. Everyone mentioned the soup.