Sublime

The mountaineer returns to his hills because he remembers always that he has forgotten so much.

Up there on the heights, far above the gloom of the valley floor, the otherwise barren slopes were dotted with graceful Chilgoza pines still washed with sunlight, their silver bark and viridescent needles glowing in the fleeting rays.

rock scramblers on the West Ridge, ice climbers on the Col route.

Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable.

“No school has more goodness and gentleness;

Even staid, prissy Thoreau, who famously declared that it was enough to have “traveled a good deal in Concord,” felt compelled to visit the more fearsome wilds of nineteenth-century Maine and climb Mt. Katahdin. His ascent of the peak’s “savage and awful, though beautiful” ramparts shocked and frightened him, but it also induced a giddy sort of awe