In the early fall of 2013, the nerves in my Babasain’s extremities shredded themselves. He was paralyzed, close to death, and hospitalized for three weeks. After intense rehab, he climbed his first stairs at Thanksgiving. Since then he overcomes intense pain and fatigue every day; for this trek across some of the most intensely alien landscape on earth, at SIXTY-SEVEN years of age, even more so. He is the personification of courage and perseverance. And believe me, he has climbed taller, harder mountains than these in his lifetime.