Jim Davidson was 20,000ft up the world’s tallest mountain when an earthquake struck. He was determined to complete the journey he started
Jim Davidson knows what it’s like to shelter in place following a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. His introduction to this type of resilience came not through the Covid-19 pandemic, but six years earlier, on Mount Everest.
Davidson, a veteran mountaineer, was making his first attempt to summit the world’s highest peak in 2015. On the morning of 25 April, he and his team were at 19,700ft at the Camp One site – a narrow glacier situated between two towering ledges. Then they heard an increasingly loud rumble come down from the west shoulder of Everest, several hundred yards away. Then came a second rumble, from the opposite direction.
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