Listen to Your Inner Voice

South Route Up Mt. Everest - Zeb Blais

I'm reading Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, a story about the 1996 Mount Everest climbing disaster and I come across this bit on page 81:

So it came to pass that at 4:45 A.M. on Saturday, April 13, I found myself at the foot of the fabled Icefall [first label above Basecamp in the above image], strapping on my crampons if the frigid predawn gloom.

Crusty old alpinists who've survived a lifetime of close scrapes like to counsel young protégés that staying alive hinges on listening carefully to one's "inner voice." Tales abound of one or another climber who decided to remain in his or her sleeping bag after detecting some inauspicious vibe in the ether and thereby survived a catastrophe that wiped out others who failed to heed the portents.

I didn't doubt the potential value of paying attention to subconscious cues. As I waited for Rob to lead the way, the ice underfoot emitted a series of loud cracking noises, like small trees being snapped in two, and I felt myself wince with each pop and rumble from the glacier's shifting depths. Problem was, my inner voice resembled Chicken Little: it was screaming that I was about to die but it did that almost every time I laced up my climbing boots.