74 The Illusion of Control

Painting by Mike Dewey, who creates his work with a digital framework, then adds watercolor and acrylic paint.

In March 2012, thirty-four-year-old Chris Van Leuven visited the great American climber Harvey T. Carter during his final days in a Colorado Springs hospital. The eighty-one-year-old man's words became the catalyst for a quest to understand how climbing prepares us for the challenges of ordinary existence, the approach of old age and the unavoidability of loss. Over the next two years, Van Leuven embarked on a series of conversations with three climbers, now in their fifties and sixties, whose youthful exploits resembled aspects of Carter's career. And with Stewart Green, Ed Webster and Jimmie Dunn, he now explores the consequences and rewards of choosing a focused life.