When I Get Off This Mountain, You Know Where I Wanna Go?

All of which sidesteps the central problem: I'd be just as dead if I fell off on the next mountain I attempt as on the tenth mountain, and my family would be just as wounded, statistics and me be damned. When I look down and see bad protection and look up and see scary climbing, or when stones start falling or avalanches roar by, suddenly the bottom drops out of my stomach and the whole climbing enterprise looks like the selfish, foolish, absurd, and potentially destructive activity it really is.

Condemning Siena [Harlin's daughter] to grow up fatherless and my mother to live through her son's death becomes an unforgiveable sin, never mind the effect my death would have on me, or for that matter Adele [Harlin's wife]. What can justify this? Nothing. Certainly not personal whimsy. I can only pretend that this pursuit is irresistible, that what I get out of it is worth the risk I place upon others, and that I'll be wise enough to keep on doing it until I die of old age.

Current Reading

The Eiger Obsession: Facing the Mountain that Killed My Father by John Harlin III