Sublime

Aux États-Unis, c’est un héros national, c’est le protecteur de Yosemite, le sauveur des séquoias, le père fondateur de l’écologie politique, même s’il y a malentendu dans ce domaine. Et puis c’est un personnage fantasque et barbu, un vagabond magnifique, libre et plein d’humour, qui a laissé parmi les plus belles pages de nature writing, ce genre

I would go to Alaska, ski inland from the sea across thirty miles of glacial ice, and ascend this mighty nordwand. I decided, moreover, to do it alone.

At 6:00 A.M., as they skirted a steep rock promontory called the First Step, twenty-one-year-old Eisuke Shigekawa and thirty-six-year-old Hiroshi Hanada were taken aback to see one of the Ladakhi climbers, probably Paljor, lying in the snow, horribly frostbitten but still alive after a night without shelter or oxygen, moaning unintelligibly. Not wa

bluff

Hornbein’s and Unsoeld’s ascent was—and continues to be—deservedly hailed as one of the great feats in the annals of mountaineering.

William (Willi) F. Unsoeld, Ph.D.: 36, Corvallis, Oregon; Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Oregon State University, on leave as deputy Peace Corps representative in Nepal; Climbing leader.

But as I studied him – and believe me, I drank him in like a parched animal at a riverbank – I began to see the cold, steady certainty of the chill green depths.