Mountaineering, among the things I don't do
I really should know better than to sit up late at night and read Wikipedia articles about dead mountaineers, Himalayan mountaineering disasters, and so on. This is probably the second or third time I've done it in as many years, and I regret it each time; even in the middle of going through the 20-some articles about it, I pause and shudder and wish I could stop, but something compelling keeps pulling me in.
Maybe it's the stories of the people who died and those who survived - their motivations, goals, dreams, whether their death was accidental (a fine climb, then an avalanche hits) or due to misjudgment (high altitude does that, including summiting late and bivouacing above 8000m), and so on. The photos are beautiful enough, the successful summits triumphant. It's disturbing that the vast majority of these deaths occur on the descent, after the summit; the number of "first person from $X country who summited" who die on the way down is terrifying.
There is a quote from Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev, who wrote: "Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn."
I admire the poetry and the philosophy, but that much risk-taking just isn't my thing. Backpacking on well-established trails in a fairly safe mountain range with low weather issues is enough, thanks.
Time to go try to distract myself seriously before I can attempt sleep. Idiot peregrine.
Maybe it's the stories of the people who died and those who survived - their motivations, goals, dreams, whether their death was accidental (a fine climb, then an avalanche hits) or due to misjudgment (high altitude does that, including summiting late and bivouacing above 8000m), and so on. The photos are beautiful enough, the successful summits triumphant. It's disturbing that the vast majority of these deaths occur on the descent, after the summit; the number of "first person from $X country who summited" who die on the way down is terrifying.
There is a quote from Anatoli Nikoliavich Boukreev, who wrote: "Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion...I go to them as humans go to worship. From their lofty summits I view my past, dream of the future and, with an unusual acuity, am allowed to experience the present moment...my vision cleared, my strength renewed. In the mountains I celebrate creation. On each journey I am reborn."
I admire the poetry and the philosophy, but that much risk-taking just isn't my thing. Backpacking on well-established trails in a fairly safe mountain range with low weather issues is enough, thanks.
Time to go try to distract myself seriously before I can attempt sleep. Idiot peregrine.