There is no way I would allow myself to be in a party that operated in such a manner. You pick your partners like your life depends on it. Preparing for the worst weather is the smartest but not the lightest way to go.


"Actually, Joe Simpson described it as being quite peaceful when he was near death in Peru."

That is not the way I felt when it happened to me, although when you fall in and out of consciousness it is hard to distinguish what is real and what is not. But that is at the very end, the part that leads up to that can be terrifying. Maybe he had a near death experience and was relating that type of experience.