110 Quotes About Mountaineering

- og nu er det jeg som står og blir liten på den siste krumning i hyldens blygt hendøende motiv.-Drømmer jeg? Er dette et skridt på en jordisk menneskevei? Kan det være en fjeldvægg, en stivnet form, denne foss av gulgrått sva, dette Niagara i sten, som med lydløs torden styrter sig ned over kanten og smelder i skogen efter et eneste sopende sveip på nærmere tusen meter?

The simple fact is this: when you goto Alaska, you get your ass kicked.

Ultimately, I wanted to own a big truck, exercise my second Amendment rights, listen to hardcore music, and let my congressman know how poorly he represents me. None of this could occur in France.

I just love all this,' Walt says. 'The sights, the smells, making the effort and pushing yourself and getting something that's really hard to get. I'll fly on a plane and people will look out the window at thirty thousand feet and say, 'Isn't this view good enough for you?' And I say no, it's not good enough. I didn't earn it. In the mountains, I earn it.

The fact that I am still alive, when so many friends and others climbing the 8000ers have died is humbling. ... It is only death that has stopped many mountaineers from achieving the full tally of 14.

To be a climber one has to accept that gratification is rarely immediate.

Annapurna, to which we had gone emptyhanded, was a treasure on which we should live the rest of our days. With this realization we turn the page: a new life begins.There are other Annapurnas in the lives of men.

...by bringing myself over the edge and back, I discovered a passion to live my days fully, a conviction that will sustain me like sweet water on the periodically barren plain of our short lives.

The end of every road is only the beginning of a new one, even longer and more difficult