Before you say “it’s impossible,” ask how the person who did it actually did it.

Impossible is usually shorthand for unimaginable from here. From where you stand you can see the distance and not the staircase, so the whole thing reads as a wall. Anyone who has already done it has a route made of ordinary steps, most of them duller than you would guess, taken over longer than the story suggests.

Choose one thing you have written off and find an account by someone who managed it. Look for what their first year was like rather than their best year. Write down the first three steps and see whether any of them are available to you now.