At the Mercy of the Mountains

Why do we climb mountains? Is anything gained from standing atop a wind-chilled summit? Questions like these often linger in the minds of climbers as they find themselves in continual pursuit of the world’s most captivating and challenging natural wonders. Facing an unbeatable enemy, (that enemy being mountains of vertical rock and snow) humans know they cannot win, they can survive in these harsh environments but these larger-than-life monoliths can never truly be conquered. In pursuit of self-exploration and a view, the mountains call to these individuals who wish to endure the struggles of ascension in an unforgiving world. But, when you find yourself slipping backward on a skin track you curse the very moment you thought hiking up a mountain would be easy.

Climbing mountains isn’t easy, it's sheer mental perseverance that pushes one to override your brain when every thought inside is telling you it’s time to quit because you’ve had enough. The mountains could care less if you are 12-pitches up a sheer granite wall, if you get caught in a storm and can’t go on you still have to get down and get off. I have witnessed some of the most intense and humbling moments in my life while out exploring these unwelcoming places tucked high in the mountains.

Though danger-ridden climbing may seem, many mountaineers aren’t the adrenaline junkies that Hollywood portrays them to be. In contrast, most driven climbers feel at peace while climbing as it calms the mind, bringing them into a mindset of extreme focus through these difficult moments. Professional high-alpine mountaineer Benedikt Böhm once said while climbing the massive Nepalese mountain, Dhulagiri VII (7,246 meters), that: “Time has a different meaning (in the mountains) when you are leaving behind the comfort zone, it is hard until it becomes liberating because you are forced to live in that very moment”. Maybe Benedikt is right, maybe the reason we desire these incredible moments in these spectacular places is because they demand our full focus on that one singular moment, we are lucky enough to find ourselves in.

Life has a funny way of always surprising you, just when you think you’ve got all your bases covered life decides to see what you're really made of. I found myself caught with my guard down this past weekend in Grand Teton National Park on a ski tour to The Grand Teton’s Teepee Glacier. The trip took a turn for the worst when a member of our group suffered an injury mid descent. Four miles and some 4,000 vertical feet stood between us and the safety of the car when the accident rendered one of our strongest group members badly injured and unable to move a limb without deep shooting pains. Rushing to assess the damage we huddled around our comrade while winds whipped from every direction in the great basin. He lay in anguish as we were able to diagnose the source of pain he suffered during the fall. Before fear and uncertainty could begin to brew within the group we quickly remedied the situation best we could, but we still had to get down to the base.

It was at that moment I was reminded we were at the mercy of the mountains. Acting together we devised a plan on how to evacuate our injured friend to safety. Shivering and exhausted from a 2am start I knew my personal excuses needed to take a back seat to the task at hand because someone else needed me. The slow descent went smoothly thanks to our competent and strong team. We were able to reach safety at the lake below. Drained from the monotonous ski back to safety the group couldn’t be happier to take a deep breath as the toughest challenges of the day were now behind us.

Skinning back through the rolling hillside we pondered at how thankful we were that the situation hadn’t been any worse. We were met with realizations on what it meant to have a good day in the mountains–an up-and-coming mountaineer once said: “A great day in the mountains ends with the same amount of people it started with.” This was more than true once we were all back at the car in one piece, happy to have ended the day with everyone we started with.

To me, a good day is enjoying an adventure with friends while being continually humbled by the rich experiences of our natural world, regardless of objective completion, being alive at the end of the day is most important. Our previous goals were now long forgotten as the palpable accomplishment of arriving safely back at the car nine hours after leaving it was far more rewarding. Arriving safely overrode all previous ambitions that we had started with earlier that day, reminding us that reaching the top isn’t what success looks like in the mountains.

Days like that one in the Tetons really wake the soul and evoke the questions that us mountain lovers wrestle with so frequently. Why climb? Why put yourself at risk? These questions often dance throughout my brain but I understand that I may never be able to answer them fully. On one hand, my dreams to reach these temporal places of freedom burn deep from within, urging me onward to experience the spectacular moments I yearn so strongly for–yet on the other hand I must remember that the mountains can take everything away at any given moment. The balance and humility one must carry while adventuring in the mountains is a delicate one. These passionate moments of life burn bright while living so close to the edge, as one small slip causes the entire game to come crashing down. “In the end we live only once and that means both, to be very careful about your life and on the other hand, to take the maximum of this one life” -Böhm. Maybe someday the age-old question of “why do you climb?” will be answered, but until then the answer is far less important than the question. Climbing is simple, you go up, you must come down, what goes on in-between is the essence of living in the moment, experiencing this beautiful life to the fullest.