Staying with the theme of mountains - and it's a good excuse for another of those stunning mountain photos - Simon closed his presentation yesterday evening with a quote from Eric Shipton, the famous British Himalayan mountain climber of a former generation, and something of a statesman for Mount Everest. It was Shipton who discovered the first abominable snowman footprints back in 1931 in the snows beneath Everest. Have they discovered any incontrovertible evidence, since, for the existence of the abominable snowman....not yeti!
Here's the quote, from his book Upon That Mountain, published in 1943:
'He is lucky who, in the full tide of life, has experienced a measure of the active environment he most desires. In these days of upheaval and violent change, when the basic values of today are the vain and shattered dreams of tomorrow, there is much to be said for a philosophy which aims at living a full life while the opportunity offers.
There are few treasures of more lasting worth than the experience of a way of life that is in itself wholly satisfying. Such, after all, are the only possessions of which no fate, no cosmic catastrophe can deprive us; nothing can alter the fact if for one moment in eternity we have really lived.'
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