"...Imagine it is 2016. Imagine this old man is in his 80s, still climbing after half a century defined by his upward wanders. Imagine he sets one foot in a dark fissure, one hand upon a sloping shelf of rock, and smiles. Imagine Chris Bonington. Not “Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL” – as we know him today. Simply, Chris. Imagine what he must feel, when, moving upwards, all his life falls away beneath him, and he is left alone with ice and stone. Imagine a climber. Toothy-grinned. At peace among the mountains, and the freedom of the hills..."
