Quotes About Mountaineering

Yes, I first visited Korphe village, Braldu valley, Baltistan, Pakistan, after failing to summit K2 in 1993, and met Haji Ali, a long time dear mentor and friend. My second visit to Korphe was in 1994.

I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.

While tentbound high on Everest, Mallory and his companions would read aloud to one another from Hamlet and King Lear

in October 1993, Gary Ball died of cerebral edema—swelling of the brain brought on by high altitude—during an attempt on 26,795-foot Dhaulagiri, the world's sixth-tallest mountain. Ball drew his last, labored breaths in Hall's arms, lying comatose in a small tent high on the peak. The next day Hall buried his friend in a crevasse.

Above the comforts of Base Camp, the expedition in fact became an almost Calvinistic undertaking. The ratio of misery to pleasure was greater by an order of magnitude than any other mountain I'd been on; I quickly came to understand that climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain. And in subjecting ourselves to week after week of toil, tedium, and suffering, it struck me that most of us were probably seeking, above all else, something like a state of grace. Of

Above 26,000 feet, moreover, the line between appropriate zeal and reckless summit fever becomes grievously thin. Thus the slopes of Everest are littered with corpses.

the ability to tiptoe in mountaineering boots and crampons across three wobbly ladders lashed end to end, bridging a sphincter-clenching chasm.

Following Sikhdar's discovery in 1852, it would require the lives of twenty-four men, the efforts of fifteen expeditions, and the passage of 101 years before the summit of Everest would finally be attained.

Jon Krakauer

Conquering Island Peak was very important as it increased my confidence.

The 14-8,000-meter-peaks-in-six-months project was something nobody could imagine was ever possible. It's tough just to climb one 8,000-meter peak, let alone 14 in such a short period of time.

Mountaineering helps in developing confidence and when I scaled Mt. Everest, I saw many people connecting with me which inspired me to scale all peaks across the globe.

Percussion is physical, as most instruments are. The body must function well in order to play the instruments well. Last year I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.

We spent a few days up Ben Nevis, which is the biggest mountain in the U.K., and there was one day when we had to make a decision whether we were going to go to the summit or not. It was already getting dark, but we made the call to go and made the summit, but as soon as we got there, this blizzard just hit.

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.

The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit.

I would never bring a flag on the summit. If somebody is climbing for a country he is not normal, he is sick.

My father blamed me for my brother Gunther's death, for not bringing him home. He died in an avalanche as we descended from the summit of Nanga Parbat, one of the 14 peaks over 8,000m, in 1970. Gunther and I did so much together. It was difficult for my father to understand what it was like up there.

You definitely need a really decent bomb-proof summit suit, because that's what you wear in these extreme conditions and at extreme altitude.

I summited four mountains - Kangchenjunga, Makalu, Broad Peak and Gasherbrum I - in one push. I didn't camp anywhere. Just went boom, summit, brother.

Hermann Buhl with K2. First

At its heart, 'Meru' is a personal story.

In mountaineering, there is not only the activity, but the philosophy behind it. Some say a moral, but I am against that because all morality is dangerous.

I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.