They say bad things come in threes. I don`t know if that is true or not. But I do know that they start to overwhelm us when they come in threes. I won`t go into great detail about my ugly trilogy in 1986, but it involved the suicide of a good friend who rented a room in my house in Birmingham, the failing of my R.I.C.S. articles more times than I care to admit, and thirdly, and most damagingly, oddly enough, the pain of a relationship break-up.This, to me, unsavoury sequence of events had a negative impact on my health, physical and mental, and I had to do something about it. So a trek to K2 Base Camp in Pakistan would do for starters. And that`s how this frantic travel/climbing thing all started. Bring on the trumpets! For a then devout Christian, this was a radical change in direction. An existentialist solution. I do, therefore I am. Members of the Baptist Church I attended might point to my solution as being a sandcastle on the beach. One to be washed away at the first tsunami. But it was MY solution. Frank Sinatra would have been proud of me. *
Pakistan in 1987 was my first real adventure abroad. I shall never forget that delicious culture shock in Rawalpindi, the day after we arrived by plane from London. I had to keep pinching myself. I`m in Pakistan! I can`t believe it! Oh, what a great and healing trip that was. I was not then a climber, but was soon to become one. I don`t need to say too much about the Karakoram itself. Just look at the pictures. Probably the most dramatic mountain range on Earth.

* I no longer go along with this. I`m back where I started. This guy knows what it`s about: www.thenarrowpath.com