Steps to The Summit - Step 25: Unknown Teammates

In today's Step to the Summit, our expedition leader Jaime Clarke advises us to keep our eyes peeled for teammates we might not eve know we have. He says that on our road to the summit, whether that is literal or figurative, we'll likely run into people who aren't part of our defined group, but are still part of our team. These people offer help and assistance along the way, and often arrive on the scene when we least expect them to. Sometimes we only need to ask for help, and we'll gain a new teammate without even knowing it.

To illustrate his point, Jaimie talks about an incident that happened on a climb on the North Side of Everest in which one of the climbers unclipped from the rope and slid down the face of the mountain. Despite efforts to grab him, and his own attempts to self arrest, the man appeared to be headed for a several thousand foot plummet, and most likely death. He was saved by another climber however, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Jamie's telling of the tale is far more dramatic and useful, but you get the idea. The bottom line is, we all have teammates on our journeys, but sometimes is the unknown, and unexpected, ones that give us the biggest boost towards our goal.