Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men And Mountains Quotes
"Money always seems like an exceedingly abstract commodity when you're deep in the wilds."
"Countless board games can be devised with a pen, a sleeping pad, and camp flotsam and jetsam."
"Why not use the unparalleled tedium of the stormed-in camp to at least get started on Proust?"
"Your own difficulties will be put in perspective by accounts of expeditions that lasted three years."
"Cooking and eating are of course limited by supplies of food and fuel, which are invariably meager."
"I would lie in bed, my face to the dark side of the cell, clinging tightly to old times and to future times."
"Sometimes fate will smile on the tentridden, or at least smirk."
"Nothing cures existential ennui as quickly as an acute threat to one's existence."
"There is a thin line, however, between mere wretchedness and thrilling, action-packed agony."
"The idea is to leave your back door open and your stairway down and clear at all times."
"It is because they have so much to give and give it so lavishly... that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again."
"Glacier flying still holds plenty of challenge."
"The mountain that officially bears the surname of our twenty-fifth president... is so big that it beggars the imagination."
"Most people who attempt McKinley... subject themselves to three weeks of exceedingly cruel and unusual punishment."
"You make one little mistake, it really kick your ass."
"Most years, McKinley still wins about half the time."
"Climbing has mutated here into a host of alpine thrill sports."
"The number of new climbing routes documented in the record books of the Office de Haute Montague is mind-addling."
"Personal safety is rightly seen as the responsibility of the skier, not the ski area."
"When I first arrived here in 1984, I was basically shunned and ignored."
"You still aren't invited over for dinner; you'll never be admitted to the inner circle."
"I'm not sure why; that's just the way it is."
"The bad blood between many French and British alpinists runs deep."
"This canyon is plenty wild, but wilderness it ain't."
"I probably know a couple of hundred guys who do slot canyons."
"I was greeted by a coiled blacktail rattler staring me in the face."
"You always know just what 'e's thinking, just what 'e's going to do. There's this tremendous trust: you couldn't lie to your twin, even if you wanted to; 'e'd see right through it straight away."
"I've learned to accept death as a part of life in the mountains."
"I did a lot more work on that mountain than the bloke who happened to summit; is there any fairness in that?"
"It became obvious that major bad weather was on the way. Everyone must have been aware that they were taking a great risk by pressing on, but I think when the summit of K2 is within your reach, you might be inclined to take a few more chances than you normally would."
"You don't get any real points for staying here, Charlotte."
"It sought for reality intensely, always if it were not there . . . But you see at once what I do. I climb."
"I couldn't believe it for a minute. I felt my cracked lips stretch into a huge, painful grin. I was on top of the Devils Thumb."
"It is easy, when you are young, to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough it is your God-given right to have it."