Hi, I'm Willow Belden, and you're listening to Out There.

This is a podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories in the Great Outdoors.

The question we're grappling with today is a psychological one.

It's a question about how we make moral decisions, how we choose when to be compassionate and selfless.

The story takes us up the tallest mountain in the world and brings us face to face with a decision that very literally affects the course of an entire life.

But let's go back to the beginning.

Our guest today is a man named Miles Osborne.

He's a professor at the University of Colorado, and he's also a world traveler

and an avid outdoorsman. And as an outdoorsman, he does a lot of things that seem risky,

crazy even. He does these things because, well, frankly, because of FOMO, the fear of missing out.

So I have this sort of overwhelming terror that I'm suddenly going to die or, you know, get some horrible illness.

And I will look back and realize that I put off a load of things that I might have done earlier.

So Miles has made a habit of not sitting around. In his approach on life,

this fear of missing out, it served him well for the most part. But 11 years ago, something

really conflicting happened to Miles, something that pitted all of those life goals that he didn't

want to miss out on against the life of a total

stranger. Producer Phoebe Flanagan has the story. It's a story about one of the hardest

decisions mountaineers ever have to make, whether or not to save another human being.

As a rule, Miles Osborne doesn't like to talk about himself.

He dodges compliments.

He cringes at the thought of posting personal updates on Facebook.

And as a kid, he was kind of a wimp.

...