Farewell

I used to end my shows with a tribute to dead friends and climbing partners. No one left these events unmoved. Especially as the tally of dead topped 40 and I couldn't leave the list on the screen long enough for people to read it. Now that list has more than 50 but probably less than 60 names on it. I stopped keeping count when the memories made me sick. I put this tribute together one night in late-2009. Humar had just died and I was thinking of him lying there with a broken leg and back, and making the call on the sat phone, hoping his blood and life didn't run out before someone came for him. The Cult of Luna song seemed the ideal soundtrack to a life fading away: knowing and accepting the inevitable at first, then a struggle, with all of the energy that remains, and finally giving in, reminded all the while of those things one might have done, or should have said. I had to use someone else's words to close the slideshow because I don't think I could say it any more clearly.