Why climb?
For the new perspective on the world. The earth, you see, asserts itself. Twentieth century frills fall away. The planet’s reality alone is apparent.
Cities drop between the silhouetted ridges, like so many Atlantises beneath the twilight mist. St. Helen’s sends puffs of steam toward a pastel sky. Mt. Hood sharply punctures the airspace to the south. A thin row of clouds extends across the eastern plains – truncated sharply beneath yet billowing upward toward a nearly full moon. Adams looms behind, above. The prey. Or are we its prey?
A steady stream of hikers comes down off the mountain as you set up camp. Ice axes clang on the rocks as tired muscles mechanically carry climbers downhill. Yet there’s always time to chat. There’s time to share the experience of the climb. An instant camaraderie forms. Climbing is unlike any other trip into the backcountry.
Always, always you realize that you’re planted on an image. You frolic about that which often appears painted on the sky. It’s like walking through a dream.
True, it’s arduous. Painful. Lonnnnng. But the climb is infinitely rewarding. For you take yourself to a place where time ceases. Where stillness and quiet reign. Where the earth’s, the universe’s constancy overwhelms, overrules all lives, all changes: it comforts. Peace. A silent envelopment of peace.
Note: I originally wrote this many years ago. It was back in the 80s. Hence, the twentieth century reference.