You have three months to prepare for the climb of your life: Mount Everest. Could you do it? Eric Gran could, and he did. Gran tells the tale of his climb, An Evening on Mt. Everest, in partnership with the City Club of Eugene on Thursday, Sept. 19. Gran stayed moving during the COVID lockdowns with snowboarding, hiking, mountain biking and surfing, he says, but his four years of climbing were put on hiatus. When his climbing partner Peter Urban asked Gran to climb Everest with him in January 2021, he was “initially very reluctant since three months was only enough time to regain my mountaineering fitness from the previous year, but not much more.” The initial reluctance didn’t stop him, though, and after pushing himself to the limit for three months straight, Urban and Gran found themselves in Kathmandu, Nepal. “The entire climb was almost two months,” Gran says. “We spent eight days trekking to base camp (18,000 feet). That’s a slow process since you need to acclimatize along the way. The next six-plus weeks were on the mountain, climbing to higher elevations and then descending to sleep and heal.” Effectively starting on April 9, 2021, Gran reached the summit on May 24. From altitude sickness to heart issues, Gran and his fellow climbers faced a variety of challenges that risked sending him back down the mountain. However, “the mind is stronger than the body,” Gran says, and he carried on. “When opportunity knocks, answer.” — Emma J Nelson

The City Club of Eugene’s presentation of An Evening on Mount Everest is 6 pm Thursday, Sept. 19, at Marquis Eugene Assisted Living, 555 Club Road. This event is in person only. FREE.