Mountain Musings

There are many parallels between mountains and life. Some of my most formative experiences in the outdoors were mountaineering with my dad. Climbing mountains was my deepest passion growing up. In high school, I would sit in class with ten different browser tabs open on my computer, and nine of them would be about the mountains I dreamed of summiting. Every weekend I was checking off another peak, some local day-hikes, some extended foreign expeditions. My dad and I got all the technical gear, all the safety training, and I absolutely loved it. He would occasionally get philosophical while we climbed, making connections between what we were doing and life as a whole. Years later, even though I haven't maintained the same consistency I once had with true mountaineering, I still catch myself finding meaning in the mountains.

First of all, I recognize the privilege that my previous paragraph describes. Not everyone gets opportunities like that, and I feel extremely lucky. Not everyone has a father present, much less a father who has the desire and ability and health to take his kid climbing often. I'd love to see the world of mountaineering become more accessible. But that's a topic for another post.

Climbing shifts our perspective. Climbing is easier when we can follow in the footsteps of guides who know the mountain well. Climbing gear, placed correctly, keeps us anchored to something solid. Climbing teams must trust each other with their lives as they travel roped together. The higher we go, the harder it gets to breathe, but the more spectacular the views. The list of similarities goes on and on.

One particular thought that has stuck with me recently has been that we climb mountains to see the world, not so that the world can see us. As we get higher, we get smaller from the perspective of anyone at the base. It's easy to forget completely that at any given moment when you look up at a mountain, there is quite possibly someone climbing it. There is something appealing about escaping the world and entering a completely different universe. There's no money or fame in mountaineering on the level at which I participate. The purpose is to go somewhere extreme, or explore somewhere new, and live life in the moment.

I have either witnessed or participated in body recoveries four times in my mountaineering adventures. Each time has left me with a deep appreciation for life, and refreshes the knowledge that it can all end so quickly. Experienced climbers die all the time. There is an inherent level of risk that some choose to mitigate more than others, but it is always there. With that in mind, why do people continue doing it if it could potentially kill them? When asked a similar question, Marc-Andre Leclerc said something along the lines of "to me, it's not an unacceptable risk." Really I think that answer is valid for any potentially dangerous activity. People drive cars even though fatal accidents happen all the time- they need to get places. People work in all kinds of jobs that put them in danger of bodily harm- they need the money. People find ways to get to the summits of the world's tallest mountains, BASE jump off rock towers, run hundreds of miles- they need to feel alive.

I don't know that I have an exact point here that I'm trying to make, other than that it can be valuable to search for deeper meaning in the activities you love.