My confidence had taken a slight dent, so I gripped the rope tightly and double-checked each and every footfall until my self-belief returned. There was now a different mindset in play. As I planted my boots in the shifting snow, I told myself that death was going to come for me at some point – maybe on a mountain during Project Possible, maybe in old age, decades down the line – but not on Nanga Parbat, and not within the next heartbeat.
