1. Mt. Everest Answer
• Climbing Mt. Everest takes strength, and even strength is no guarantee of success.
Seaborn “Beck” Weathers tried to make it, but his attempt almost cost him his life.
Weathers survived thanks to his knowledge and determination to see his family
again.
• Blinded and freezing, Weathers found himself alone and dying. Weathers decided
that if he “didn’t get moving, [he] was going to lie there for eternity.” He physically
pushed himself, using his “last remnant of energy” as he wandered aimlessly.
Finally he remembered to use the wind, realizing that camp must be “upwind” and
staggering in that direction. In addition to this knowledge, he used the image of his
family to motivate himself. Three times he says “I could see my family standing
there before me.” Because he wanted to see them again, to “say some of the
things [he] wanted to his family,” he keeps moving. He finally, unbelievably, finds
the camp.
• Mother nature in the form of a harsh mountain almost killed Weathers, but he
survived thanks to remembering a key fact and being persistent. Although he kept
going from a “primitive desire to survive,” in part thoughts of his family also
helped him. Through this experience, he discovered that human beings have an
amazing capacity to endure, that his strength “resides in each of us.”