Mountaineering Quotes

Abundant choice doesn't force us to look for the absolute best of everything. It allows us to find the extremes in those things we really care about, whether that means great coffee, jeans cut wide across the hips, or a spouse who shares your zeal for mountaineering, Zen meditation, and science fiction. ~ Virginia Postrel

Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the words, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is
whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze
perfect. ~ Bill Bryson

The mountain is calm when there is a storm; the mountain is calm when there is fog; the mountain is calm when there is sun! Calmness is the wisdom of the mountains! Those who have lived everything are always calm! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Mountains are both journey and destination. They summon us to climb their slopes, explore their canyons, and attempt their summits. The summit, despite months of preparation and toil, is never guaranteed though tastes of sweet nectar when reached. If my only goal as a teacher and mountaineer is the summit, I risk cruel failure if I do not reach the highest apex. Instead, if I accept the mountain's invitation to journey and create meaning in each step, success is manifest in every moment. ~ T.A. Loeffler

This was my introduction to mountaineering, and clumsy indeed were my movements as we moved off. ~ Jan Morris

As de Saussure said, risk-taking brings with it its own reward: it keeps a "continual agitation alive" in the heart. Hope, fear. Hope, fear - this is the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. Life, it frequently seems in the mountains, is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction: we never feel so alive as when we have nearly died. ~ Robert Macfarlane

... one of the most decisive factors enduring a borderline situation is the WILL TO SURVIVE.
-Reinhold Messner ~ Bernadette McDonald

Only secrets can be conquered'- most of all the secrets that lie within ourselves. ~ Bernadette McDonald

In a civilization of wage slaves, where people seek to survive more than to live, mountaineering is an enigma. ~ Erhard Loretan; Jean Amman

Rob Hall was, without doubt, the most competent guide in mountaineering. ~ Jon Krakauer

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

I was heavily involved on all fronts: with mountaineering outfitters, who oddly enough never fathomed the depths of my ignorance; possibly because they couldn't conceive of anyone acquiring such a collection of equipment without knowing how to use it… ~ Eric Newby

Classic mountaineering grows out of a traditional romantic imagination. Its heart is the feeling, its path is blood, sweat and tears, and its restriction is God. ~ Wojciech Kurtyka

A failed attempt on a virgin face of an eight thousander gives me much more than the successful ascent of a known route. ~ Bernadette McDonald

mountaineering offers you a chance to learn about yourself by venturing beyond the confines of the modern world. ~ Ron Eng

Mathematical study and research are very suggestive of mountaineering. Whymper made several efforts before he climbed the Matterhorn in the 1860's and even then it cost the life of four of his party. Now, however, any tourist can be hauled up for a small cost, and perhaps does not appreciate the difficulty of the original ascent. So in mathematics, it may be found hard to realise the great initial difficulty of making a little step which now seems so natural and obvious, and it may not be surprising if such a step has been found and lost again. ~ Louis J. Mordell

We cannot overlook the importance of wild country as source of inspiration, to which we give expression in writing, in poetry, drawing and painting, in mountaineering, or in just being there. ~ Olaus Murie

Keeping in mind the old mountain adage that the longer you take to set up your bivy site, the shorter the bivy you have to endure, we ended up taking two hours to dig the snow cave. ~ Erhard Loretan

In all my wild mountaineering, I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times. ~ John Muir

A night on the mountain is better than a thousand nights in the city because you meet the universe on the mountain! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

It is said that a man is rejuvenated every seven years- that all his cells are replaced. I wonder, does that also apply to his spirit?
- Reinhold Messner ~ Bernadette McDonald

The mountain decides whether you climb or not. The art of mountaineering is knowing when to go, when to stay, and when to retreat. ~ Ed Viesturs

My mountaineering skills are not important to my best photographs, but they do add a component to my work that is definitely a bit different than that of most photographers. ~ Galen Rowell

The solitary ascent of the Dru had the immediate effect of expanding the horizons of my ideas about mountaineering. It made me aware of possibilities well in advance of the times, which were characterized by very restricted methods. This was how the superb pyramid of K2 surfaced once more in the list of my projects. But I chose K2 as a way for giving concrete form to my new concept of mountaineering: to climb the second highest mountain in the world solo, alpine style, and without oxygen. ~ Walter Bonatti

Mountaineers are one of the few groups to celebrate before the finish line. More mountaineers die on the descent than on the ascent. ~ Susan Oakey-Baker

Mountaineering is a complex and unique way of life, interweaving elements of sport, art and mysticism. Success or failure depends on the ebb and flow of immense inspiration. Detecting a single rule governing this energy is difficult - it arises and vanishes like the urge to dance and remains as mysterious as the phenomenon of life itself. ~ Wojciech Kurtyka

Inner harmony is the prerequisite for any climber who seeks to push the frontiers; without it he should give up extreme mountaineering.
-Reinhold Messner ~ Bernadette McDonald

K2 is not some malevolent being, lurking there above the Baltoro, waiting to get us. It's just there. It's indifferent. It's an inanimate mountain made of rock, ice, and snow. The "savageness" is what we project onto it, as if we blame the peak for our own misadventures on it. ~ Ed Viesturs

The unknown is so inflammatory to the imagination because it is an imaginatively malleable space: a projection-screen onto which a culture or an individual can throw their fears and their aspirations. Like Echo's cave, the unknown will answer back with whatever you shout at it. ~ Robert Macfarlane

climbing a mountain represents a chance to be briefly free oneself of the small concerns of our common lives, to strip off nonessentials, to come down to the core of life itself. Food, shelter,, and friends - these are the essentials, these plus faith and purpose and a deep and unrelenting determination. ~ Mateo Cabello

The eight-man expedition was pinned down in a ferocious blizzard high on K2, waiting to make an assault on the summit, when a team member named Art Gilkey developed thrombophlebitis, a life-threatening altitude-induced blood clot. Realising that they would have to get Gilkey down immediately to have any hope of saving him, Schoening and the others started lowering him down the mountain's steep Abruzzi Ridge as the storm raged. At 25,000 feet, a climber named George Bell slipped and pulled four others off with him. Reflexively wrapping the rope around his shoulders and ice ax, Schoening somehow managed to single-handedly hold on to Gilkey and simultaneously arrest the slide of the five falling climbers without being pulled off the mountain himself. One of the more incredible feats in the annals of mountaineering, it was known forever after simply as The Belay. ~ Jon Krakauer

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks. ~ Tennessee Williams

...just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man – or of the cindered planet after the last ~ Fosco Maraini

But this, perhaps, is the enduring lesson of mountaineering: once we've hit our target we are but halfway. Soldier on. ~ Sebastian Marshall

Climbing has taught me many lessons, one of the most important being, just how ever-present death is. Having faced death a few times now while climbing, has made me realize that I have no fear of it. ~ Mekael Shane

Let us grant courage and the love of pure adventure their own justification, even if we cannot produce any material support for them. Mankind has developed an ugly habit of only allowing true courage to the killers. Great credits accrue to the one who bests another; little is given to the man who recognises in his comrade on the rope a part of himself, who for long hours of extreme peril faces no opponent to be shot or struck down, but whose battle is solely against his own weakness and insufficiency. Is the man who, at moments when his own life is in the balance, has not only to safeguard it but, at the same time, his friend's- even to the extent of mutual self-sacrifice- to receive less recognition than a boxer n the ring, simply because the nature of what he is doing is not properly understood? In his book about the Dachstein, Kurt Maix writes: "Climbing is th emost royl irrationality out of which Man, in his creative imagination, has been able to fashion the highest personal values." Those personal values, which we gain from our approach to the mountains, are great enough to enrich our life. Is not the irrationality of its very lack of purpose the deepest argument for climbing? But we had better leave philosophical niceties and unsuitable psychoanalisis out of this. ~ Heinrich Harrer

For the stone from the top for geologists, the knowledge of the limits of endurance for the doctors, but above all for the spirit of adventure to keep alive the soul of man. ~ George Mallory

I really haven't liked the commercialization of mountaineering, particularly of Mt. Everest. By paying $65,000, you can be conducted to the summit by a couple of good guides. ~ Edmund Hillary

Mountaineering is the art of getting up mountains by foot and occasionally by hand, and though the climbing is usually emphasized, most ascents are mostly a matter of walking(and since good climbers climb with their legs as much as possible, climbing could be called the art of taking a vertical walk). ~ Rebecca Solnit

Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory. ~ Ed Viesturs

To touch the sky, you just have to get that little bit closer. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Like it or not taking risks, by a total commitment to the mountain and the vagaries of the weather, is essential for the greater satisfaction to be derived from mountaineering. ~ Doug Scott

I was born to live, in pursuit of the penultimate high.
I am guaranteed a Homeric death, when it's my time to die. ~ Mekael Shane

A healthy person that uses medical oxygen to perform their job on a daily basis should expect to eventually become a sick person. ~ Steven Magee

And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far into the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Page No. 31, Freedom Climbers ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

For us the mountains had been a natural field of activity where, playing on the frontiers of life and death, we had found the freedom for which we were blindly groping and which was as necessary to us as bread. ~ Maurice Herzog

In no other pursuit is the best or the worst in a man brought out as in mountaineering. An old friend of civilization may be a useless companion on a mountain. ~ Frank Smythe

For me, making films is like being on vacation, it's a nice walk. But theatre is like mountaineering. You never know whether you're going to fall off or make it to the top. ~ Isabelle Huppert

There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Like an entirely cloudless sky when one is going mountaineering ... ~ Marcel Proust

Mountaineering is a relentless pursuit. One climbs further and further yet never reaches the destination. Perhaps that is what gives it its own particular charm. One is constantly searching for something never to be found. ~ Hermann Buhl

In 1977, I climbed a fairly difficult mountain for the first time, which was Mount McKinley, in Alaska. I climbed the so-called 'American Direct Route,' which was a route straight up to the top. I really enjoyed it. Through such experiences, I learned that mountaineering wasn't just about height. I found that different routes have different charms. ~ Tamae Watanabe

If you ignore the mountain, doesn't mean mountain will ignore you too.. ~ Tanveer Mazhar

too young to live, too old to die ~ Jeffrey Rasley

Pucky lads, a wee bit over their heads. ~ Doug Scott

Yes, we had made and excursion into another world and we had come back, but we had brought the joy of life and of humanity back with us. In the rush and whirl of everyday things, we so often live alongside one another without making any mutual contact. We had learned on the North Fae of the Eiger that men are good, and the earth on which we were born is good."(p.126) ~ Heinrich Harrer

I assure you it's harder to battle human stupidity than to do battle with mountains. Mountains, after all, have holds. ~ Erhard Loretan

One day's exposure to mountains is better than a cartload of books. ~ John Muir

... where mountains are sacred & where risk & death are constant companions- the Himalayas. ~ Bernadette McDonald

Before the deed comes the thought. Before the achievement comes the dream. Every mountain we climb, we first climb in our mind. ~ Royal Robbins

That afternoon, I went to Henry with a suggestion.
Michael and Graham were still ill. But I was feeling almost fit again.
"Why not let Geoffrey and me head up to camp two, so we can be in position just in case the typhoon heads away?"
It was a long shot--a very long shot--but as the golfer Jack Nicklaus once said: "Never up, never in."
Sure as hell, I wasn't going to stand any chance of the summit, sitting here at base camp twiddling my thumbs, waiting.
In addition, at camp two, I could be a radio go-between from base camp (where Henry was) and the team higher up.
That was the clincher.
Henry knew that Michael and Graham weren't likely to recover any time soon. He understood my hunger, and he recognized the same fire that he had possessed in his own younger days.
His own mountaineering maxim was: "Ninety-nine percent cautiousness; one percent recklessness."
But knowing when to use that 1 percent is the mountaineer's real skill.
I stifled a cough and left his tent grinning.
I was going up. ~ Bear Grylls

One thing to remember on the Eiger, never look up, or you may need a plastic surgeon. ~ Don Whillans

Profound silence would brood over the valley, even weighing down our spirits with indefinable heaviness. There can be no other place in the world where man feels himself so alone, so isolated, so completely ignored by nature, so incapable of entering into communion with her ~ David Oliver Relin

What counts are merely the experiences one gains along the way.
-Reinhold Messner ~ Bernadette McDonald

The greatness of a mountain comes neither from its height nor from its massive mass; but his greatness comes from the calm of his stance against the harsh conditions of life! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Maybe mountaineering shouldn't be considered heroic at all, since the whole effort is 'useless' and in no way to be compared with sitting down at the wrong lunch counter in the early-sixties South, or going into battle. Nevertheless, situations arise in the useless enterprise of mountaineering that present people with choices, that make emotional and physical demands that few can meet. ~ Robert Roper

The mountains, the forest, and the sea, render men savage; they develop the fierce, but yet do not destroy the human. ~ Victor Hugo

I like the mountains because they make me feel small,' Jeff says. 'They help me sort out what's important in life. ~ Mark Obmascik

He (Tomaz Humar) doesn't conform to existing standards; he creates them. ~ Bernadette McDonald

As one veteran Russian pilot dryly told me:We have to be very careful flying in the clouds. Around here they are full of rocks. ~ Alan Hinkes

I like to think of Everest as a great mountaineering challenge, and when you've got people just streaming up the mountain - well, many of them are just climbing it to get their name in the paper, really. ~ Edmund Hillary

Working on the summit of Mauna Kea was comparable to working on the hospital pulmonary ward with sick people sucking on oxygen cylinders. ~ Steven Magee

Mountaineering is one of the most difficult sports - we are away from routine life for days, living in tents, and it requires high degree of physical and mental strength. ~ Samina Baig

A lone peak of high point is a natural focal point in the landscape, something by which both travelers and local orient themselves. In the continuum of landscape, mountains are discontinuity
culminating in high points, natural barriers, unearthly earth. ~ Rebecca Solnit

There was a shepherd the other day up at Findon Fair who had come from the east by Lewes with sheep, and who had in his eyes that reminiscence of horizons which makes the eyes of shepherds and of mountaineers different from the eyes of other men. ~ Hilaire Belloc

The roller-coaster is my life; life is a fast, dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and feeling angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it ~ Paulo Coelho

When you scale a mountain, you have to leave your ego at home. ~ Anthony T. Hincks

Life's a bit like mountaineering - never look down. ~ Edmund Hillary

All my life, I have never felt as happy on Earth as when I'm getting closer to the sky. ~ Erhard Loretan

Mountaineering has always been a huge hobby of mine. ~ Andy Serkis

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

If we successful, we will enter into the history of mountaineering, we will have the opportunity to its success to sacrifice our colleagues. ~ Jerzy Kukuczka