Mountaineer Finds It’s Lonely (and Scary) at the Top

--After two months on top of a Chilean mountain, nourished by baby food, reading a novel set in the Peruvian jungle and praying to a God he doesn’t believe in, Spanish mountaineer Fernando Garrido has returned to civilization. Garrido, who beat the previous record by two days, came down to Paso Los Libertadores from 62 days of voluntary isolation on Mt. Aconcagua, 22,600 feet above sea level, and described how he held down his tent with his hands during storms as lightning struck all around him. “It was harder than I expected. There were terrifying moments when I wanted to give up. I thought I was dying,” he said of his world record-breaking feat when he met reporters at the border pass at the foot of the mountain. “At times I gave myself up to a Higher Being, to God, even though I am not a believer,” he added. Although he suffered a broken nose and lost the toenails from his feet in temperatures as low as minus 41 Fahrenheit, the 27-year-old mountaineer was smiling and satisfied. “But I’m not going to do it again,” he said. Garrido tried to spend most of his time reading and sleeping. “I never talked to myself out loud. I just sang.” His radio contacts, among them his girlfriend, Maribel Vila, were celebrating his return before tackling a more down-to-earth problem. “I’m broke,” Garrido said.

--Actor-singer Harry Belafonte has discussed a possible run for the U.S. Senate from New York in 1986 with the head of the state Democratic Party, a party spokesman said. Belafonte’s discussion with state Democratic Party chief Larry Kirwan about a challenge to incumbent Republican Alfonse M. D’Amato “was a very serious conversation--Mr. Belafonte is seriously interested in a race,” party spokesman William Cunningham said. The 59-year-old entertainer and political activist and Kirwan were expected to discuss the possibility of Belafonte’s candidacy again soon, Cunningham said.

--Indianapolis Mayor William Hudnut III, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Milton Babbitt and Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes’ son, Michael, were honored by Princeton University in Princeton, N.J. The university gave Michael Sarbanes the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, which is its highest undergraduate award and includes a check for $10,960. Sarbanes, whose father is a Democrat from Maryland, is a senior taking his major at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Hudnut received the Woodrow Wilson Award and Babbitt was given the James Madison medal. Both men attended Princeton. Babbitt, who won the Pulitzer in 1982, is professor emeritus of music at the Ivy League school.