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.”