Trying to understand why people climb mountains - Joe Simpson said in Touching the Void, 'When you're on that mountain pushing that line of living and dying, you live for that moment with a very clear perspective of what being alive is. When you come down from the mountain that sense of perspective tends to fade, which is why you want to go back. So you're not going back for some adrenaline-junkie hit, you go back to live fully. Non-climbers say: 'Do you have a death wish?' No I don't, it's one of the most life enhancing things to do.' This metaphor can perhaps be applied to all challenges involving risk.