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Phil Arnot, shown here during one of his countless excursions, looks back on his life of adventuring. “I can’t tell you where I went shopping yesterday, but I can tell you every step you take in climbing Denali,” he said. “I can remember anything that had an emotional attachment. And I had a lot of those.”   Courtesy of Phil Arnot

Phil Arnot said he’d start this story with the nightmares he had as a 3-year-old, when bat-like creatures fluttered out of the closet of his bedroom on 14th Avenue in San Francisco. Hovering above him in succession, they tormented the future Air Force pilot.

Now 93, the author and adventurer meaningfully replays those . . .