Sam and Alex were a wonderful couple from UK that are both about 21 years old (three years younger than my Youngest (Nick).  I and everyone had nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for them.  They were eternally cheerful and happy and (I think) Sam was the strongest climber in the group (especially since he was asked to carry extra group gear a number of times and never ever complained).  I have never seen a couple that got along as well as they did and they were constantly singing and completing verses, laughing, giggling, chatting and playing word games.  (My favorite: “which would you rather do - be burned alive or ravaged by a thousand men” - something like that!).

Even in the small disagreements that they had, Sam typically had the ability to say or do the right thing to instantly defuse the situation.  One has to note that being on the mountain is stressful 24/7 for mere mortals, and for a couple to do it (this was the first that I have seen) was amazing.  They have been all over the world, like Antarctica, South America, Africa, skiing in France (they both spoke French also along with Sandra.)  They were much older than their chronological age and it was hard to believe that they were (are) so young because they were (are) so mature.   They said they had been together about 5-6 years (except for a short break) and I think they have many many adventures ahead of them.  You really could not ask for better fellow climbers and when I was on their rope team on the descent, it was a great experience as they seemed to move effortlessly and cheerfully.  (Plus Sam took most all of my Cliff Bars that I didn’t want!)

Laine

Laine was our tentmate for more than half of the trip.  Laine is CEO of a Ad/PR/Branding company in South Africa and was kind enough to let us use his Sat Phone for some important calls home.  He also shared his Ginger Snaps (Yummy) and I traded some Salmon and Tuna packs that he was craving and didn’t sound good at all to me on the mountain.  We had some good talks in the tent about golf, South Africa, telecoms, marketing and other stuff.  While we had some rope team issues, these things happen and they had no lasting animosity in the group and we were always able to talk things out in the tent and we (together with Paula) were quite pleased to summit together.  While the rest of us were reading or listening to music during downtime in the tent, Laine had brought work with him and I think he was working on his company’s business plan for 2009 at length.  He was speaking in Geneva (the Geneva Convention right after the climb and had the head back the night we got back to Talkeetna so we did not get a chance to say a proper goodbye and missing from our town picture when we were all cleaned up.  I wore my All Blacks rugby shirt to annoy him but he was unfazed!

Related posts:

• Place related post plugin php here...