Mountains Make Poor Receptacles For Dreams.

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.

The Endless, Agonizing Recycling Of What Might Have Been, Soon Followed By A Litany Of Rationalizations And Self-deceptions As You Struggle To Reconcile The Void Between The Person You Want To Be And The Person You Fear You Are.

Early On A Difficult Climb, Especially A Solo Climb, You’re Hyper-aware Of The Abyss Pulling At Your Back, Constantly Feeling Its Call, Its Immense Hunger. To Resist Takes Tremendous Conscious Effort, You Don’t Dare Let Your Guard Down For An Instant. The Void Puts You On Edge, Makes Your Movements Tentative And Clumsy. But As The Climb Continues, You Grow Accustomed To The Exposure, You Get Used To Rubbing Shoulders With Doom, You Come To Believe In The Reliability Of Your Hands And Feet And Head. You Learn To Trust Your Self-control.

My Reasoning, If One Can Call It That, Was Inflamed By The Scatter Shot Passions Of Youth And A Literary Diet Overly Rich In The Works Of Nietzshe, Kerouac, And John Menlove Edwards.

The Thing That Is Most Beautiful About Antarctica For Me Is The Light. It's Like No Other Light On Earth, Because The Air Is So Free Of Impurities. You Get Drugged By It, Like When You Listen To One Of Your Favorite Songs. The Light There Is A Mood-enhancing Substance.