Coincidences and odd juxtapositions abound, don't they sometimes, taking us by mild surprise in the brief shock of recognition, sometimes amusing, sometimes not. Take, for example, my husband's and my bedtime reading titles at the moment. Mine is 'Savage Summit', his is 'Savage Spring'. His is a Swedish crime thriller, and mine is a studied accounting of women summiting K2, the most hostile-to-life mountain in the Himalayas,reputed to be the world's second tallest, and the most destructive of human life.

And just coincidentally, speaking with our good friend and neighbour Serge a few days back, a man in his elder years who has become a consummate world traveller to stave off the boredom of otherwise having it all -- all but a lifetime companion -- taking to twice-yearly guided tourism to the world's most interesting travel destinations there was an interesting revelation. He never fails to return with enthusiasm for what he has seen and experienced, describing to us his adventures.

Guided adventures to be sure, but adventures nonetheless. The latest of his ventures was to Nepal and he was, as usual full of impressions and eager to convey them to us. He mentioned that one of the events he was exposed to, put on by the tourism company he was with, was guided by a woman who had summited K2. She informed the gathering of just what a physical, endurance and good-fortune feat that was.

He wouldn't know, unless she divulged it to him whether she is among the women who are increasingly joining the male-dominated 8,000-metre club, those elite physical specimens who temporarily set aside their fear and count on experience and good luck to guide them to the heights of the world, all the mountains that qualify, at or over 8,000 meters in impressive height of immeasurable grandeur.

Anyone who isn't addicted as I am to reading of the exploits of these climbers hailing from all over the world; Germany, Austria, Poland, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Britain, France, the United States, Canada, Japan and so many others whose ambitions and (sometimes fatal) attraction to those impossible and forbidding heights lead them to risk everything for the ephemeral experience of setting boot atop those summits, would not really know the uncountable threats to life and limb each faces.

When I say 'know' even that is questionable, since description as careful and as detailed as skilled writers of mountain landscapes can make them in an effort to fully convey the threats of oxygen-deprived executive function, epoxia, avalanches, unstable ice-and-snow shelves, extreme fatigue, hidden yawning chasms, extreme cold, a step in the wrong direction, snow blizzards and high winds so fierce they literally, not figuratively, blow human figures off the mountains to their deaths.

We may mentally tuck all that data away in our minds for reference purposes, but the larger question of why these people are driven to tax their physical and psychological resources beyond their limits is never completely answered to our satisfaction. One would have to be addicted oneself to the imperative of the beckoning mountain and the exhilaration felt despite intolerable fatigue and fear, and finally the overwhelming joy and satisfaction of the final, completed ascent, to fully understand.

K2 is ascended far less frequently than is Everest. While the death toll on Everest is impressive enough, despite the skills of those making the attempt (not to mention its popularity with fit but ambitious people with the $60,000 or so it takes to buy a place on a commercial climb these days, where Sherpas do all the heavy lifting and servicing and trail preparation), it is the descent of K2 that takes a toll representing death, for approximately 40% of those who experienced the mind-blowing success of reaching its peak.