Alpinist Quotes

You need mountains, long staircases don't make good hikers.

All mountain landscapes hold stories: the ones we read, the ones we dream, and the ones we create. -from the Editor's Note, The Alpinist (April 1, 2010)

There are cracks to other worlds, places in our daily existence where you can pry the walls open and arrive on the other side—if you can get your fingers around the edges.

I am locked in a very expensive suit old elegant and enduring Only my hair has been able to get free but someone has been leaving their dandruff in it Now I will tell you all there is to know about optimism Each day in hub cap mirror in soup reflection in other people's spectacles I check my hair for an army of alpinists for Indian rope trick masters for tangled aviators for dove and albatross for insect suicides for abominable snowmen I check my hair for aerialists of every kind Dedicated as an automatic elevator I comb my hair for possibilities I stick my neck out I lean illegally from locomotive windows and only for the barber do I wear a hat

The travails of being an employee include not only uncertainty about the duration of one's employment, but also the humiliation of many working practices and dynamics. With most businesses shaped like pyramids, in which a wide base of employees gives way to a narrow tip of managers, the question of who will be rewarded - and who left behind - typically develops into one of the most oppressive of the workplace, and one which, like all anxieties, feeds off uncertainty. Because achievement in most fields is difficult to monitor reliably, the path to promotion or its oppositie can acquire an apparently haphazard connection to results. The succesful alpinist of organizational pyramids may not be the best at their jobs, but those who have best mastered a range of dark political arts in which civilized life does not usually offer instruction.

Warum steigen Sie auf Berge Herr Messner?" "Weil sie da sind

Crusty old alpinists who’ve survived a lifetime of close scrapes like to counsel young protégés that staying alive hinges on listening carefully to one’s “inner voice.

Albert Mummery, that eminent alpinist, described being in the mountains in this way: ‘Above, in the clear air and searching sunlight, we are afoot with the quiet gods, and men can know each other and themselves for what they are.

An alpinist, I already know, is a climber of mountains by difficult routes, by technical routes: real climbing to summits like this one. The ice hammer itself is a key to the world of legends that I’ve dreamed of in my fading boyhood: the world of climbers like Reinhold Messner, Hermann Buhl, Riccardo Cassin, Walter Bonatti, and Yvon Chouinard.

When climbing a mountain you get further away from earth but closer to yourself

Woolf drew on her memories of her holidays in Cornwall for To the Lighthouse, which was conceived in part as an elegy on her parents. Her father was a vigorous walker and an Alpinist of some renown, a member of the Alpine Club and editor of the Alpine Journal from 1868 to 1872; he was the first person to climb the Schreckhorn in the Alps and he wrote on Alpine pleasures in The Playground of Europe (1871). By the time he married Julia Duckworth in 1878, however, a more sedentary Leslie Stephen was the established editor of the Cornhill Magazine, from which he later resigned to take up the editorship of the Dictionary of National Biography in 1882, the year of Woolf ’s birth. Stephen laboured on this monumental Victorian enterprise until 1990, editing single-handed the first twenty-six volumes and writing well over 300 biographical entries. He also published numerous volumes of criticism, the most important of which were on eighteenth-century thought and literature.

Among many cases of this sort, I have been especially impressed with one that concerned a colleague of mine in Zürich. He was a man somewhat older than myself whom I saw from time to time, and who always teased me on these occasions about my interest in dream-interpretation. I met him one day in the street, and he called out to me: "How are things going? Are you still interpreting dreams? By the way, I've had another idiotic dream. Does it mean something too?" He had dreamed as follows: "I am climbing a high mountain over steep, snow covered slopes. I mount higher and higher—it is marvelous weather. The higher I climb, the better I feel. I think: 'If only I could go on climbing like this for ever!' When I reach the summit, my happiness and elation are so strong that I feel I could mount right up into space. And I discover that I actually can do this. I go on climbing on empty air. I awake in a real ecstasy." When he had told me his dream, I said: "My dear man, I know you can't give up mountaineering, but let me implore you not to go alone from now on. When you go, take two guides, and you must promise on your word of honour to follow their directions." "Incorrigible!" he replied laughing, and said goodbye. I never saw him again. Two months later came the first blow. When out alone, he was buried by an avalanche, but was dug out in the nick of time by a military patrol which happened to come along. Three months after this the end came. He went on a climb accompanied by a younger friend, but without guides. An alpinist standing below saw him literally step out into the air as he was letting himself down a rock wall. He fell on to the head of his friend, who was waiting beneath him, and both were dashed to pieces far below. That was ecstasis in the full meaning of the word.

étrier /etʀije/ I. nm <Équit> stirrup; (de ski) front binding; (d'alpiniste) etrier II. Idiomes 1. boire le coup de l'étrier○ | to have one for the road (familier) 2. mettre à qn le pied à l'étrier | to get sb started

étrier /etʀije/ I. nm <Équit> stirrup; (de ski) front binding; (d'alpiniste) etrier II. Idiomes 1. boire le coup de l'étrier○ | to have one for the road (familier) 2. mettre à qn le pied à l'étrier | to get sb started étrier de frein (brake) calliper

The race across the mountain continued, but the mountains still glowed when it was their time to glow. They still cried when it was time for rain. And they still told you stories, if you only knew how to listen to them. But I was no longer one of those who knew how to listen … who knew how to laugh and cry with them … I was an athlete … I was an alpinist. I spoke of walls and overhangs. I ran and trained and counted my ascents. I fell prey to the folly of categorization, adding up points, comparing myself to others and making myself poorer and poorer. I was turning into a shallow and stupid craftsman. All I saw were numbers, summit heights, sizes of walls, estimations of difficulty. I only saw Roman and Arabic numerals, commas and plus and minus signs. My hands and legs were strong and unstoppable but my head became empty and my heart no longer beat faster because it was being overwhelmed by beauty – only because of physical effort. My path was rapidly turning downhill while the curve of my success continued to rise. One climb became indistinguishable from another. I functioned like a well-oiled machine that will continue to run on empty if no one stops it. And thus the wheels of my machine kept turning without purpose, faster and faster, until my children reminded me that the birds in the forest were still singing.” Excerpt From: Bernadette McDonald. “Alpine Warriors.

Identificăm faptul de a fi fericiți cu confortul, cu sucesul, cu gloria, cu puterea, cu aplauzele, cu banii, cu plăcerea, cu satisfacția instantanee; și nu părem deloc dispuși să renunțăm la vreunul dintre aceste lucruri. Nici măcar în schimbul fericirii. Știm că o mare parte a suferinței noastre provine de la ceea ce facem în fiecare zi pentru a avea aceste lucruri, dar nimeni nu ne poate convinge să renunțăm la ele. Nimeni nu ne poate face să credem că vom înceta să suferim dacă vom face marele pas de a înceta să dorim. Și, bineînțeles, este foarte clar. Suntem ca alpinistul, cramponați de căutarea lucrurilor materiale, ca și cum ar fi coarda care ne va salva. Nu avem curajul să ne desprindem de acest mod de gândire pentru că ne închipuim că, fără bunuri materiale, ceea ce urmează este eșafodul, moartea, dispariția. Știm că ceea ce cunoaștem ne produce suferință, dar nu suntem dispuși să renunțăm la acest lucru. Ne este cunoscută ideea de a da drumul lucrurilor pentru a parcurge drumul mai ușor, și atunci nu avem nicio posibilitate de a înceta să suferim, pentru că, în afara frustrării, se instalează în noi o anumită contradicție. Dar este necesar să admitem că, în ceea ce ne privește pe noi occidentalii, ne este imposibil să încetăm să dorim, deși mai știm și că este imposibil să ai la infinit și pentru totdeauna tot ceea ce dorești, pentru că nu suntem omnipotenți. Cu alte cuvinte: Nu încetăm să fabricăm dorințe. Nici unul dintre noi nu poate și nici nu va putea vreodată să aibă tot ce dorește. A dori și a nu obține este sursa suferinței. Există vreo soluție pentru această capcană? Cred că da. Cheia se poate afla pe drumul învățării modului în care să intri și să ieși din dorință. În acest sens, este necesar să dezvoltăm abilitatea de a dori fără a rămâne blocați în dorință, de a dori fără să ne agățăm așa cum se agață un alpinist de coarda care crede că îi va salva viața. Pe scurt, să învățăm să ne desprindem.

In 1923, George Mallory, the dashing alpinist and writer, was asked by a New York Times reporter why he wanted to climb Mount Everest. He famously replied, “Because it’s there.” The rest of his response is less commonly cited, but more instructive: “Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It’s existence is a challenge. The answer is instinctive, a part, I suppose, of man’s desire to conquer the universe.

Like most of the special operations community, their physical training centered on useful strength, cardiovascular endurance, and durability, which, as both of them were pushing age forty, was increasingly important. Looking like a steroid-fueled bodybuilder was not part of the equation and was a liability in terms of both physical performance and blending into civilian populations. Their workouts pulled elements from various coaches and training programs, including CrossFit, Gym Jones, and StrongFirst. The idea wasn’t to be able to compete with endurance athletes, power lifters, or alpinists, but to achieve a broad-based level of fitness that would allow them to perform well in each of those areas. After a series of warm-up exercises that most would consider a serious workout, they completed the strength and endurance Hero WOD “Murph,” named in honor of Navy SEAL Lieutenant Mike Murphy. Wearing their body armor, they started with one hundred burpees followed by four one-hundred-yard buddy carries. Then it was right into a two-mile run, one hundred pull-ups, two hundred push-ups, three hundred air squats, followed by another two-mile run. Both men powered through, thinking of the scores of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who didn’t make it home.

L'esprit de l'époque voulait qu'on allât au bout du possible, qu'on s'aventurât même au-delà, y compris en transgressant les règles élémentaires de la prudence. Bientôt des alpinistes en chapeau mou et chaussures basses, des explorateurs à bandes molletières et moustache gominée, des fous volants, des découvreurs de terres vierges ou de mers encore inconnues, nourriront de leurs exploits l'insatiable imagination de leurs contemporains, ou bien leur offriront leur mort tragique et absurde, aux commandes incertaines de quelque engin de leur invention, hybride cocasse de cageot à légumes et de cerf-volant.

On pense toujours que le plus difficile dans une ascension, c'est de se hisser jusqu'au sommet, les livres ou les films ne parlent que de ça, parce que c'est le temps de la conquête et de l'exploit, la métaphore du progrès humain et de la domination de la nature, alors que tous les alpinistes vous diront que c'est de loin la descente qui représente le plus grand danger. Climax

Aside from the occasional task at court, it’s his free time that matters. In a sonnet written by Ludovico’s court poet, Guidotto Prestinari, Leonardo is accused of spending his days hunting in the woods and hills around Bergamo for “various monsters and a thousand strange worms.” He also explored caves and climbed mountains to study the fossils and geology and to glimpse the view up high, making him one of the very first European alpinists. We also know from his later inventories that around this time he began buying more books as well. And he began contemplating the creation of his own books on various subjects, beginning with painting, which he preferred to treat as a science, while at the same time analyzing and treating machine design and hydraulics more as creative arts.

movements done, and at a similar speed and intensity of climbing. To a very large extent, elite-level swimmers principally swim for training, champion cyclists ride, top runners run, and world-class skiers ski. A general sport like alpinism can include more nonspecific modalities than these traditional sports, especially in the early base-building period and for less athletically mature individuals. But the biggest benefits will come from preparing for and modeling the demands of alpine climbing as closely as possible. This is the reason top climbers spend so much time climbing. As an alpinist seeking to improve your endurance