Conquering that gap is possibly the most difficult climb in the life of any alpinist who is in a relationship. There’s an apparently unbridgeable gap between the thought that I risk my life doing something as trifling as climbing a cold lump of rock and ice…and the notion of traveling through a floating landscape, progressing with utmost concentration while having absolute control of the essential balance that keeps me alive and that, therefore, lets me live. I wonder if it’s at all possible to fully explain to someone who isn’t a climber. I’ve never been able to fully explain it to you. Our worst argument was about this, and it was the only time I was really afraid that I would lose you.

You’ve also often asked me (I wouldn’t say begged, though it’s not far off the mark) to stop. You’ve often asked me why I climb mountains. The only snag in his perfect life with Nick is the latter’s obsession with mountain climbing, a hobby that Sam finds mystifying, if not outright terrifying.īut Nick is adamant about his mountaineering, explaining perhaps more clearly why in his journals than in his conversations with Sam: But he has hidden depths, including a flair for languages that has him working on his master’s degree now that he’s settled down with the man he loves, after spending his first years at university partying instead of studying.

Sam Avery seems like your stereotypical bored rich American expatriate, living in Amsterdam with his partner, Nick Grevers.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt