Thank you for focusing on the mountain experience as a way to discover the inner world. This is exactly what we need!
Previous generations built churches. But for us, they are dusty chambers, offering no relief. We’re too sophisticated, for better or worse, to enter them with the enthusiasm and imagination that previous people did. Our devotion to science (scientism?) allows only one space where awe and wonder can still be expressed: nature.
Combine that wonder with sweat and a little risk… And you’ve got modern magic. You’ve got self redefinition. You’ve got creation. This, essentially, is altitude. You climb, and your sweat means you hold empathy for all who toil in the hardpan where you began, only dimly knowing what you were doing.
I was a pale, nerdy kid who hated the outdoors. But years ago, I fell into that beckoning silence seen in the distant forested ridges at dusk. Something is there.
We must go and find it.
(I took this picture at dawn in the Bugaboos, stomach keyed up in knots over a climb of Bugaboo Spire. The weather was an excuse to abseil, mixing disappointment and relief. But the scene before me stuck in my heart and shattered my ability to believe in the cities ever again)
