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| REACH! Erik Weihenmayer answers questions from Ms. Edmundson's class at Mt. Vernon Presbyterian School |
| I was fortunate to hear Erik speak twice in one week, at two different corporate functions. The first time I saw Erik speak was at a conference in Orlando where over 1,000 people were glued to their seats hearing stories of his adventures. Not because he’s the first blind person to summit Mt. Everest, but because his presentation was filled with humor, insights and life lessons that touched everyone in the audience. His message was grounded in personal anecdotes, wrapped in the challenge to shatter expectations and REACH towards immense possibilities, those unseen and yet somehow sensed. When I sat down with Erik a week later he was gracious with his time, spending over half an hour talking with me and answering a number of questions from a pretty special group of third graders from my daughter's class. I was lucky to catch the first few questions on my pocket camera's video setting; the rest of the Q&A was an off-camera verbal exchange. These are the beginnings of the REACH! project - more on that later. Stay tuned & enjoy! |
Was it your dream to climb Mt. Everest? Watch the video!
Were you scared to climb Mt. Everest? Watch the video!
How many people were with you? Watch the video!
How do you climb when you can't see?
My other team members had Bear Bells jingling from their poles so I could follow the sound of the bells. Also they would tap their poles against a rock - I could hear that too. We also had a system of communication that could tell you the danger of a particular situation in just one of three words: Annoyed, Hospital or Dead!
How do you know if it's ice or rock? How do you know something is falling and might hit you?
You can feel the ground under your ice axe or crampons and can tell if it's ice, snow or rock. We tried to avoid those areas where the rock was unstable. Also we wore our helmets to protect us from falling ice or rocks.
How did you know you got to the top? How did you feel?
Sound has a texture - a certain way that things sound when noise bounces off objects and comes back to you - kind of how clapping your hands sounds different in a marble hallway than in a carpeted room... At the top of Mount Everest, sound has a long way to go before it bounces off of things! As to how I felt, when I reached the summit, my mind had not yet caught up to my body - it's one of those things that hits you later. I felt grateful that our team had so many members reach the top.