Erik wants to climb Mount Everest. He loves to climb, and there is no place greater for climbers than the top of 29,035 feet, the world's highest mountain.     Erik is blind. He has been blind since age 13, when an eye disease robbed him of his sight. His new book, Touch the Top of the World: A blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther than the Eye Can See, describes his blindness and climbing. He is the first blind man to attempt Everest. The team reached the base camp at 17,800 feet last Wednesday and began its climb Saturday. If all goes well, Erik will reach the top on about May 15. "I'm not just some broken blind guy," Erik, aged 32,said for hours before he left Los Angeles on Friday for Katmandu, Nepal. "1 put my life in my fellow climbers'hands, and they put their lives in my hands. It's an honor to reach that state. "     "I want to experience the sense of adventure. Blindness has nothing to do with that. But a message of the climb is that a blind person can join a team and climb the highest mountain in the world. "     Erik has climbed the highest tops on four continents: North America's Mount McKmley, South America's Aconcagua, Africa's Kilimanjaro and Antarctica's Vinson Massif. He is an expert rock and ice climber, having scaled El Captain in Yosemite National Park. When he was 16, he attended a school that taught blind people to be independent. One day, a group went rock-climbing. "1 really liked it," Erik said, "You can solve problems. It is sense in your inner mind. People didn't think blind people could go out and become expert rock climbers. The distance between the top of Mount Everest and the base camp was  probably  _    .
8,458 feet 11,235 feet 17,800 feet 29,035 feet