Gamme : why is he doing this ?
Published on 31.12.2011 - Antarctica 2011- 2012
Sastrugis all over...
© Aleksander Gamme
While approaching the SP, Aleksander Gamme has been interviewed by a Norwegian politician on 27 December who has asked him why he was doing all this...
Why do the big expeditionners, alpinistis and explorers are undertaking such big adventures? This question will remain an everlasting one.
On 8th June 1924, British climbers George Mallory and Andrew Irvine left their high camp on Mount Everest in a bid to reach the summit. Neither returned. They were last seen alive at 12.50pm as they surmounted an obstacle on the Northeast Ridge, not far from the base of the final pyramid. They were going strong for the top. But whether the pair were the first to reach the summit, 29 years before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, and how they came by their deaths, remain a mystery.
Before they left England for that last climb, Mallory was asked by a Briton journalist why he was trying that feat ? The answer Mallory gave at that time has remained famous : "Simply, because its' there", he said...
This time we are not dealing with such big guys of course. But the comment that Aleksander Gamme gave to the same question asked by Norwegian barrister and politician Knut Storberget on the Satphone is interesting. Not owing to what he himself answered (he talked about taste for adventure, challenge and development of self-control), but because he has refered to an answer given by Norwegian and alpinist Arne Naess (1912-2009) in 1985, on his return from an Expedition on Everest : "For those who understand why we do all these adventures, no explanation is needed. For the ones who do not understand, no explanation will ever be sufficient enough..."
Gamme has now crossed his halfway mark. Everything is OK on board.
