There's only one way to gain mountain sense, and that's to be in the mountains a lot. Unfortunately, when you're a young climber, you have none. You're out there, and your risk level is high.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm one of those people who always needs a mountain to climb. When I get up a mountain as far as I think I'm going to get, I try to find another mountain.
Whatever that means, however you got on that mountain, why not try to climb it? And do it in your own way.
It's a heavy burden to look up at the mountain and want to start the climb.
Mountain hikes instilled in me a life-long urge to get to the top of any inviting summit or peak.
Accidents on big mountains happen when people's ambitions cloud their good judgment. Good climbing is about climbing with heart and with instinct, not ambition and pride.
I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.
When you go to the mountains, you see them and you admire them. In a sense, they give you a challenge, and you try to express that challenge by climbing them.
There's intense personal gratification in finding a mountain and becoming inspired by the aesthetics of an unclimbed line on that mountain, especially if that line has been tried by a lot of people who couldn't do it, and you get to set yourself up against the history of it.
You have to know when you're at the top of your particular mountain, I guess. Maybe not the summit, but as high as you can go.
If you don't have a mountain, build one and then climb it. And after you climb it, build another one; otherwise you start to flatline in your life.
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