Climbing Everest with Matt Dickinson

Climber, film maker and author of The Everest Files, Matt Dickinson came to speak to our Removes about his novels and his attempts on some of the toughest peaks in the world. He gave a stimulating, awe inspiring and, at times, brutal talk, keeping his  young audience enthralled with tales of mountain rescues and daring climbs.  He also warned them never to take a Toffee Crisp onto Everest – they explode! Dickinson’s exciting novels are based on his own experiences on Everest; he made a successful ascent of the notorious North Face in 1996 amid the worst weather conditions ever recorded: hurricane-force winds and temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius.

Pupil Shivan Aggarwal wrote , “Everyone was astonished that he had climbed over twenty different mountains, Everest being one of them! One of the mountains he had climbed was K2, located on the border of China and Pakistan. There is a 23.24% chance you will die trying to summit this mountain compared to a mere 5.7% chance of dying climbing Everest. Matt told us some disgusting facts such when you need the toilet you have to dig a hole in the snow and fill it back up. Also, when you need to drink water, you would have to melt the snow! His advice was to not drink yellow snow; you never know what’s inside! However, there was one thing that threw most people off their chair, if you were to climb Everest, it would mean eight weeks with no Wi-Fi.

On to more exciting matters, if you were to climb a mountain, you would have to choose one chocolate bar and take loads of packets. Every time you needed energy, you would eat one. The only problem is, once you have eaten lots and lots of that chocolate, you will never want to eat it again!

Did you know that the government of China want to close Everest and make it off-limits for anyone to climb? We had a debate and there were arguments either way for whether they should do it or not.

Overall, everyone enjoyed the talk and found Matt Dickinson really funny. It was a really nice thing to end the day.”

What’s your personal everest? Set your own goals and re-evaluate your life objectives.

Matt Dickinson

 

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