Michael Thexton

And they never said a word.

And I, in my, you know, in my youthful innocence, never occurred to me what they might be thinking, you know,

But obviously, they would think he's not coming back.

But he has to go.

They never tried to talk me out of it.

That I still think of as being the most extraordinary thing.

Yeah, it was a very emotional thing because it's like a pilgrimage in every sense in that you're going to a place that's very meaningful.

and it's really hard to get there.

I think these days you can drive in quite a bit further but in those days it was six days of hard walking.

I mean really hard walking.

I was not as fit as all of the climbers.

I tried to do some preparation but it was a total shock.

I mean we would

Get up in the morning, sort of three or four o'clock in the dark.

There was no water that you could drink beyond what you were carrying.

I mean, it was just brutal.

And then you spend a lot of time walking by this river, the Braldu River, which comes down out of the Baltoro Glacier.

It's a huge, raging torrent of meltwater.

And you can hear it rolling boulders.

It's like sort of grinding of teeth.