In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Like many people who've done a lot of climbing over many years, I've had the odd accident, and a few (very) near misses. I've also witnessed bad accidents and death at close quarters, and lost many friends to the mountains.
Yet whilst each incident and loss forced a pause for reflection, reassessment and sometimes recalibration of risk factors, it invariably wore off after a few weeks, offset by the passion and desire to climb irrespective of the blindingly obvious risks.
However, when the trajectory of my climbing began to start to plateau, and other things became important in my life, it all changed.
A 5 day epic retreat through a ferocious storm on the Eiger NF (my second, and the 5 most harrowing days of my life) which almost cost me my life, changed everything.
We managed to get back down - due primarily to my remarkable partner - and ended up spending a couple of weeks in hospital with frostbite, broken ribs, shattered cheek bone, broken nose, and other injuries, and at the end of it, I came out with 2 toes less than I went in with.
I never climbed another route for the following 25 years.
I've been back climbing again for about 5 years now, and loving it all once more, although my risk meter is now calibrated for happily married man, father and old fart, as opposed to wild eyed ambitious young turk
However, had my Eiger epic happened when my trajectory was still on the up, and without other distractions, who knows? After the wounds had healed and the nightmares stopped, I might have gone back for round 3?