֍ elle ֍’s Reviews > Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster > Status Update

Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any other mountain I’d been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to… suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking … a state of grace.