I don’t begrudge anyone their right to die while pursuing all manner of daredevil activities. For my part, I’ve long said that there’s three ways I won’t shuffle off this mortal coil: mountain climbing, skydiving, or riding on a motorcycle. Life is largely unpredictable, but if you can narrow your possible causes of death by even a few, I just feel like you’re exercising a modicum of control over the ultimate endgame.
Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya obviously didn’t share my disdain for dying at high altitudes, because the 82-year-old former Nepalese foreign minister died Monday while trying to become the oldest man to summit Mount Everest.
According to Agence France-Presse, Upadhyaya died hours after arriving at camp one and the cause of his death is not yet known. If he had succeeded in his journey, Upadhyaya would have become the oldest person to reach the top of Everest, beating current record holder Min Bahadur Sherchan, who scaled the mountain at the age of 76 three years ago. Upadhyaya had said he wanted to raise awareness about the capabilities of elderly people by scaling the world’s highest peak, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of mountaineers.
Some people might be tempted to make light of what happened here, to point out that Upadyaya did in fact raise awareness of what elderly people are capable of. But who wants to go there? My father is 73 years old and needs around-the-clock oxygen in order to breathe. I’m sure if you gave him the option of living like that or trading it in for the opportunity to climb Mount Everest, he’d start scouring Travelocity for cheap flights to Nepal.
I’ve never been attracted to mountain climbing. I’m not afraid of heights and I enjoy cold-weather sports, including skiing and snowshoeing. But scaling up a rock face has always seemed more risk than it’s worth. Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya obviously disagreed, and good for him. He died trying to do something he genuinely wanted to do. We should all be so lucky to die on such terms.
(Photo: Agence France-Presse)
