Sherpa Can Already Tell You're Not Going To Make It

ANNAPURNA BASE CAMP, NEPAL— Lobsang Dorjee, the Nepalese Sherpa you hired for $45 a day to help you climb one of the 10 most dangerous mountains in the world, concluded in his journal Tuesday that you will die during the ascent. “A man of advertising cannot prepare for a low-oxygen ascent by jogging in Aspen, as I have said many times before,” wrote Dorjee, whose advice on routes, provisions, and the use of double-belayed expansion bolts were dismissed out of hand before you started out. “However, I have never seen a wristwatch like his, and am looking forward to exchanging it for a year’s worth of food and heating oil.” Dorjee came highly recommended by the other dilettante climbers of your acquaintance, who noted that he usually brought his client’s bodies back more or less intact.