By Christopher Mattas

Gerald was a very avid outdoorsman and adventurer for the entirety of his life, and had special a deep love for climbing. At ten years old, Gerald received climbing gear including shoes, a harness, a climbing rope, an ATC, a set of quickdraws, a grigri, and a chalk bag, from his parents for Christmas. Gerald’s parents were constantly moving all over the Western United States, so school wasn’t Gerald’s first priority. Gerald grew up climbing with his parents all over the Western United States and training in his local climbing gyms every night. Geralds favorite climbing trip when he was young was Mount Elbert in Colorado, standing at 14, 433 feet. Gerald loved climbing Mount Elbert because he could imagine how Everest would be when he was on top of Elbert. 

Now, as a 130 year old man, he looks back at his childhood and earlier years, thinking he was grateful for all of the exciting climbing experiences he had. However, the one thing he never got the opportunity to do was climb Mount Everest. April was right around the corner and Gerald couldn’t stop thinking about Mount Everest. After thinking more and more about Everest, Gerald decides he wants to climb Everest and set a world record of the oldest man ever to summit Mount Everest. Gerald convinced his grandson to climb Everest with him and assist him in achieving his world record goal. They ended up summiting Mount Everest and on their way down, the wind picked up tremendously and moved a very dangerous storm in. Gerald was climbing down with his rope he got when he was ten, when it suddenly broke causing him to fall twenty feet. Gerald passed out during his fall and woke up next to a young girl who was going through hypothermia. Slowly Gerald got himself up and helped the young girl down the mountain to safety at the first base camp where she could be helped. Here, Gerald hears about his Grandson getting stuck above the third base camp and immediately heads back up to help his grandson. Gerald makes it up to the third base camp in the extremely powerful wind and finds his grandson in a tent in the later stages of hypothermia. Gerald quickly grabs his grandson and carries him down the mountain to the first base camp where he can be treated. Before Gerald’s grandson regains consciousness, Gerald has a heart attack and passes away right outside the tent on the first base camp.