First Anniversary Quotes

A year ago today, Dan, Adam & Alan stood on the top of the world. What an extraordinary year it has been: a year of personal growth, family and friends; a year of presentations, interviews and blogs. We hope we have inspired, encouraged and motivated people to make their dreams real. Following are quotes from the summiters.

Dan: "The height of Everest has only been exceeded by the high that we experienced from all the attention and well wishes over the past year."
Adam: "Following this year's summit attempts has rekindled vivid memories of our expedition. It is time to start to dream again."
Alan: "A year seems like a long time but whenever I talk about our summit day my heart starts to pound and it all seems like it was just yesterday."

Keep dreaming!!!

Advantages of a Small Cottage

In 1982, when our first son Adam was born, Dan and I built a small one room sleeper cottage on the lake where he spent summers as a child with his brothers and sisters. Almost every weekend throughout the year when the children lived at home we ventured to the cottage. Even now that they are adults, the cottage has an allure. In fact, Laura is living with a friend and the dog at the cottage now and working for the summer nearby.
The cottage is 12’ x 16’ and it has been the source of our family’s enjoyment for many years. Everyone questions how we ever lived in such a small space for so long but doing so has had its advantages. The small size of the cottage meant that most of the time people were outside enjoying nature and getting lots of exercise. It also meant that going to the cottage was a bit of a camping experience both summer and winter. All our children can make a meal over an open fire even in winter. They know how to stay warm, how to cool off, and how to find their way around in the bush. They have built something new each year to entertain themselves – tree forts, rope swings, ski jumps, bicycle jumps, a hot tub, log buildings, etc. (maybe that is why both Adam and Alan decided to become engineers). In hind sight, I think having a small cottage helped everyone prepare for their Mt. Everest adventure.
Now with some hesitation, we are preparing to build a bigger cottage in preparation for an extended family someday. I have to keep reminding myself that it is a cottage and it should be rustic. The important part of cottage life is the sharing of experiences not the building.

1924 Mt. Everest postcards

Climbing of Mt. Everest is a huge financial undertaking. Every climber hopes to recoup at least some of his or her investment after the climb through lectures, films, pictures, advertising etc. To do this you need to capture public attention before, during, and after the climb. In 1924, before the age of television and the Internet it was hard to keep the public's attention focused on people climbing Mt. Everest. To solve this problem, Captain John Noel, the expedition photographer, came up with a unique idea for the time. He publicised the expedition by advertising in a daily newspaper that he would send a unique expedition postcard from Mt. Everest's Tibet Base camp to anyone who sent in their name and address. There was an overwhelming response to his ad and thousands of postcards were sent from Base camp back to England. At the bottom of the postcard he advertised the film he would be producing about the climb - Noel's way of recouping some money.

Living without a television

In some ways our family is unique. The children grew up without a television in the house. That meant that we played a lot of games and spent a lot of time outdoors. I seemed to be entertaining the neighbourhood for many years. All the children gathered at our house after school to bake, play hide and seek, run races and make crafts.
We spent the summer at the cottage playing in a huge sandbox - 8 ft. x 8 ft., swimming in the lake and cooking over an open fire. We picked wild strawberries and blueberries to make fresh pies, kneeboarded and skied 2 or 3 times a day and built a tree fort in almost every tree. Friends were invited up. It was like summer camp at the Mallorys.

Getting fit

I was told I could remove my cast the other day; my fracture has healed. Now I have to work on my mobility. My ankle joint has stiffened up from having the cast on for 2 months. Naturally because of my age, everyone is concerned about my bone density. Personally, I do not think I am a very good candidate for osteoporosis but I will have a bone density done before my next medical just to make sure there isn't something genetic that I do not know about. Did you know that becoming unfit takes much much less time than becoming fit? Discouraging I know.
I have started back slowly going to aquafit at the pool and I going to physio and laser therapy. I hope to start biking shortly. To stay young means moderate exercise for an hour 6 days a week. For me, I find it best to schedule that into my day just like an appointment and I need to attend classes. Having other people sweat along with me is motivational. Dan who is more competitive likes to sign up for races. That forces him to exercise to prepare for the race.
Most of the family hopes to run a marathon this fall. Too much pounding for my knees and ankles but I wish them luck. I will be on the bike clocking their progress.

2009 Mt. Everest climbers

There seem to be fewer climbers on Mt. Everest this year, probably because of the ecomony; however, I have been checking the Summit Climb website because one of my companions, Dale, from last year is making an attempt to summit this year and another fellow climber, Stefano, is climbing Cho oyu. For my family Everest almost seems like a dream now. Laura and Adam did mention the other day that they were not very interested in going camping this summer though. Memories of living in a tent on a mountain for 2 months came flooding back I think.

First on Everest-Explore Magazine

Almost a year after my family summited Mt. Everest people and the media are still interested in our story. In the May edition of Explore Magazine the Mallory Expedition is the cover story and inside you can see pictures of the climb and read all about the Mallory family's adventures on Mt. Everest. There are things in that article that even I was not aware of. Laura was much sicker on the mountain than any of us realized. I guess Kate Barker - the author - knows the right questions to ask. If you get an opportunity pick up the magazine. For the outdoor enthusiast there are lots of great articles besides the Mallory story.