I got to thinking – what exactly is a mountaineer? I mean, I’m the Desert Mountaineer, so I are one, right? But what does the word really mean?
One definition I found says “mountaineer” is someone who takes part in mountaineering. Okay, that’s great, so what is mountaineering? Another definition says it is “the sport or activity of climbing mountains.” That’s fine, I can live with that – I mean, that’s what I spend my life doing, right?
Once I started to think about famous mountaineers, I came up with quite a few. How about Jed Clampett? He was, of course, the patriarch of his family who lived in Bug Tussle, a small settlement in the hill country of Kentucky or some place like that. As the theme song of the Beverly Hillbillies TV show says:
Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Jed Poor mountaineer barely kept his family fed
One of my favorite singers, Gordon Lightfoot, wrote a lovely song called “Brave Mountaineers”, and in it said this:
And I need to be there
When the autumn wind goes whistlin’ through the trestle we would climb,
Like brave mountaineers
We never were much bothered by time.
There’s another mountaineer that has to be one of my favorites, and it is called Oreonympha nobilis. In terms easier to understand, the English name for this creature is the “bearded mountaineer”. It is a hummingbird, and it lives in Peru, in high-altitude valleys up to 12,800 feet – has to be the coolest bird ever, right?
Perhaps the largest group of mountaineers in one place on the planet can be found at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia – about 28,000 of them, in fact. They’re not there to study mountaineering, though – it’s simply the school’s mascot.
Probably the second-largest group of mountaineers to be found is the Seattle-based group of that name. The Mountaineers boasts 10,650 members, and these are the real deal – they actually climb mountains. The club was founded in 1906 and has been (and still is) a cornerstone of mountaineering in the northwestern U.S.
I’ll bet that if you took a survey of people everywhere and asked them what the term “mountain climber” means to them, most would say that they think of people on high, snow-covered mountains in faraway places, and not rock climbers. I also think that mountain climbers are a more revered lot, held in higher esteem by the general public than rock climbers, but that’s just me.
Mountaineering is a high-risk occupation with no shortage of hazards, both objective and subjective, which can do you in. Probably the greatest killer of mountaineers every year is avalanches. Here’s a list of some famous climbers who perished while practicing their craft, many of them far too young.
http://www.ranker.com/list/famous-people-who-died-of-mountaineering/reference
Here’s an exhaustive list of mountaineers, both men and women, from all over the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_climbers_and_mountaineers
Then there’s the concept of the “greatest” mountaineers in the world. Of course, that’s very subjective, but several come to mind. My personal choice, and perhaps my greatest mountaineering hero, would be Reinhold Messner. I remember as clearly as yesterday when, in 1978 with his climbing partner Peter Habeler, he climbed Mount Everest without the use of supplemental (bottled) oxygen – the entire mountaineering world was staggered, incredulous, including Yours Truly. This feat set the bar at a much higher level than ever before. As if that weren’t enough, two years later he again climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen, but this time solo and by pioneering a new route. Unbelievable! He went on to become the first climber to summit all 14 of the 8,000-meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. Although others have since climbed all of the 14, there’s only one first, and they’ve all stood in his shadow. His list of mountaineering accomplishments is exhaustive, and this site will give you a pretty good idea of what he’s done.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner
There are many famous quotes about mountaineers and mountaineering, and here are some of my favorites:
“Because it’s there” – George Mallory
“It’s a round trip – getting to the top is optional, getting down is mandatory” – Ed Viesturs
“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
“This is the human paradox of altitude: that it both exalts the individual mind and erases it. Those who travel to mountain tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.”
― Robert Macfarlane
“One does not climb to attain enlightenment, rather one climbs because he is enlightened.” — Zen Master Futomaki.
“Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach.” –John Muir
“Montani semper liberi.” — Motto for the state of West Virginia. (mountaineers are always free)
“Climbing is hard to give up, it’s just as hard to give up as cigarettes.” — Layton Kor.
“It’s always farther than it looks.
It’s always taller than it looks.
And it’s always harder than it looks.” — The 3 rules of mountaineering.
“There have been joys too great to be described in words, and there have been griefs upon which I have not dared to dwell, and with these in mind I say, climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are naught without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do nothing in haste, look well to each step, and from the beginning think what may be the end.” — Edward Whymper
“Climbing is as close as we can come to flying.” — Margaret Young, aviator and alpinist.
“On this proud and beautiful mountain we have lived hours of fraternal, warm and exalting nobility. Here for a few days we have ceased to be slaves and have really been men. It is hard to return to servitude.” — Lionel Terray
“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.” — Hermann Buhl
“Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.” — Evan Hardin.
“In the mountains there are only two grades: You can either do it, or you can’t.” — Rusty Baille.
“Eastward the dawn rose, ridge behind ridge into the morning, and vanished out of eyesight into guess; it was no more than a glimmer blending with the hem of the sky, but it spoke to them, out of the memory and old tales, of the high and distant mountains.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“One cannot climb at all unless he has sufficient urge to do so. Danger must be met (indeed it must be used) to an extent beyond that incurred to normal life. That is one reason men climb; for only in response to challenge does one man become his best.” — Ax Nelson.
“You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place ? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know.” — René Daumal
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as the sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.” — John Muir
“To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.” — A. Alvarez
“The pleasure of risk is in the control needed to ride it with assurance so that what appears dangerous to the outsider is, to the participant, simply a matter of intelligence, skill, intuition, coordination… in a word, experience. Climbing in particular, is a paradoxically intellectual pastime, but with this difference: you have to think with your body. Every move has to be worked out in terms of playing chess with your body. If I make a mistake the consequences are immediate, obvious, embarrassing, and possibly painful. For a brief period I am directly responsible for my actions. In that beautiful, silent, world of mountains, it seems to me worth a little risk.” — A. Alvarez
“I believe that the ascent of mountains forms an essential chapter in the complete duty of man, and that it is wrong to leave any district without setting foot on its highest peak.” — Sir Leslie Stephen
“Some mountaineers are proud of having done all their climbs without bivouac. How much they have missed ! And the same applies to those who enjoy only rock climbing, or only the ice climbs, only the ridges or faces. We should refuse none of the thousands and one joys that the mountains offer us at every turn. We should brush nothing aside, set no restrictions. We should experience hunger and thirst, be able to go fast, but also to go slowly and to contemplate.” — Gaston Rébuffat
“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
“A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him and leaving something of himself upon it.” — Martin Conway.
“The events of the past day have proven to me that I am wholly alive, and that no matter what transpires from here on in, I have truly lived.” — Anonymous climber.
“Pain is only weakness leaving the body.” — Tom Muccia.
“The mountains have rules. they are harsh rules, but they are there, and if you keep to them you are safe. A mountain is not like men. A mountain is sincere. The weapons to conquer it exist inside you, inside your soul.” — Walter Bonatti
“To those who have struggled with them, the mountains reveal beauties that they will not disclose to those who make no effort. That is the reward the mountains give to effort. And it is because they have so much to give and give it so lavishly to those who will wrestle with them that men love the mountains and go back to them again and again. The mountains reserve their choice gifts for those who stand upon their summits.” — Sir Frances Younghusband
“Ever since a small boy, I have loved just to look at the mountains, to see them in different lights and from different angles, to feel their rough rock under my fingers and the breath of the winds against my feet… I am in love with the mountains.” — Wilfrid Noyce
“In his laborious efforts to attain mountaintops, where the air is lighter and purer, the climber gains new strength of limb. In the endeavor to overcome obstacles on the way, the soul trains itself to conquer difficulties; and the spectacle of the vast horizon, which from the highest crest offers itself on all sides to the eyes, raises his spirit to the Divine Author and Sovereign of Nature.” — Pope Pius XI.
“The mountains have done the spiritual side of me more good religiously, as well as in my body physically, than anything else in the world. No one knows who and what God is until he has seen some real mountaineering and climbing in the Alps.” — Rev F. T. Wethered, 1919.
“Short is the little time which remains to you of life. Live as on a mountain.” — Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180),
“Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” — Psalms 61:2.
“There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.” — Mark Twain quotes (1835-1910).
“When you get to the summit of the mountain, keep climbing.” — Tibetan saying
“Man of the plains, why do you climb the mountain ? So I can see the plain better…” — Chinese saying.
“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery” – John Ruskin
“The higher, the fewer.” – Star Trek, The Next Generation
“The authentic Englishman is one whose delight is to wander all day, amongst rocks and snow, and to come as near breaking his neck as his conscience will allow.” – Sir Leslie Stephen, 1871
“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” Psalms 121:1
“In the mountains, worldly attachments are left behind, and in the absence of material distractions, we are opened up to spiritual thought – we should be attempting to carry the spiritual experience of the mountains everywhere.” Jamling Tenzing Norgay, 2011
And so, Dear Readers, perhaps I should add one more, one that has a strong personal meaning for me. Many years ago, I had a business, and, believe it or not, immediately below the name of my company on my letterhead, was this Latin motto for all so see:
“ASCENDENDI MONTEM PESSIMUS MELIUS QUAM OPTIMUS DIES LABORANDI”
which translates as: “The worst day climbing is better than the best day working”. I’ve believed that for a long time.
In any case, thanks for listening while I’ve shared some of my most personal thoughts about my favorite subject, mountaineering.