Climbing & Mountaineering: Understand the Appeal

I’m often asked how to describe the experience of mountain climbing—and mountaineering in general—to people who have never been and who may only know the activity through, say, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air or some movie(s) they say. I can try to convey my own experience, but whenever I get started up, people tend to regret it, I’m told. I tend to provide, not too much information, but much too detail. Or else I get too far the other way and go straight to the euphoria of summitting and surviving. I’ve never been great at book learning, I’m okay, but I do have a memory that’s very experientially oriented.

So I’ve thought about over the years, and one of the unusual references I make, which sometimes work and sometimes doesn’t, but I’ll ask if the person has ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There’s a kind of effortless focus that humans are capable of only when their immediate safety is threatened, even if it’s hopefully in a controlled way. Pretty much every climber I’ve talked to doesn’t have a death wish—well, no more so than other people. I’ve never met a climber who seemed suicidal, anyway.

Like riding a motorcycle across the country, climbing and mountaineering evoke this effortless focus and way of being. From the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Northwest, here is a list of places that you should check out to learn how to climb and go mountaineering.