“If you lived in the U.K. in the 1970s/‘80s, you would think every top climber in the country had died in the Himalaya,” says Dougald MacDonald, editor of American Alpine Journal. Dougal Haston, Nick Estcourt, Alex McIntyre, Peter Boardman, and Joe Tasker were the best British alpinists of their time, and all of them died within a period of a few years in the mountains. “I would say a higher percentage of elite alpine climbers died in those days than today. But that’s just a gut feeling.” I wonder if that’s true. Amid any tragedy, especially when a celebrity dies, it can be tough to see the big picture, objectively and dispassionately. My article last month reviewing the past decade of climbing alluded to just how many alpinists are now gone. I was thinking about death after seeing the news of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, his daughter, […]