Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Notable Quotes

The thread that I start almost every year at the end of the year... It's usually about things that I've heard out in the wild, but this year I don't recall hearing anything worth remembering, so:

"Once a mountaineer has climbed so high, for the rest of his life he dreams of returning." - Peter Boardman

"If the mountaineer arrives back home, his heart and soul are still up there..." - Dr. Harvey Lankford

(Both of these quote came from Harvey's article "Risks In The Mountains: Words From On High" that was published in the Spring 2009 issus of "Wilderness Medicine.")

My all-time favorite:

"I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you."

Simple, concise, unpretentious - and amusingly poetic in its own way . . .

Robert Plant, I think it goes.... Shes got what it takes to make this mountain man not want to leave his home. or something like that.

Richard, I am very glad you enjoy the mountains and the mountain quotes. Harvey

Here is my favorite, from my number one high altitude author, Joe Tasker:

“In some ways, going to the mountains is incomprehensible
to many people and inexplicable by those who go.
The reasons are difficult to unearth and only with those
who are similarly drawn is there no need to try to explain.”

Not necessarily a mountain quote, but perhaps useful in bear country, is this one from Satchel Page, baseball great:

"Don't look over your shoulder; sumthin' might be gaining on you!"

Let me take you higher....

Sly and the Family Stone

Here are some of mine:

"Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach." —John Muir.

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go." — T. S. Eliot.

"The bizarre trend in mountaineers is not the risk they take, but the large degree to which they value life. They are not crazy because they don't dare, they're crazy because they do. These people tend to enjoy life to the fullest, laugh the hardest, travel the most, and work the least." — Lisa Morgan.

And then there is my quote--my signature line here and on all the summit registers: it's just better in the mountains.

"But now that I was finally here, standing on the summit of Mount Everest, I just couldn't summon the energy to care." -- Jon Krakauer

I love that one! Into Thin Air, right?

"Enough !" -- Doug Sr

Grenoble, you win the brass ring. Classic.

Three favorites:

"...to coolly seat one's self in the door of death, and silently listen for the fatal summons, and this all for a friend, ..., -requires as sublime a type of courage as I know."
Clarence King being belayed by Cotter on Mt. Tyndall

Had I been born aloft:

"I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.

Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete. ... I found a way without effort and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light."
Muir on Ritter

And, of course, Norman Clyde finding Walter Starr's body, quoted elsewhere on this forum:

""As I carefully and deliberately made my way down toward the notch, I scanned and re-scanned the northwestern face. Much of it was concealed by irregularities. Suddenly a fly droned past, then another, and another.

"The quest is nearing an end," I reflected""
--Norman Clyde

g.

I have many varieties of quotes. From one of the most famous of British explorers, this quote is a mixture of British understatement and wit. If one has climbed early, long, or high then some of this sounds familiar. Harvey

For the first hour I plod along in mood of deep gloom, of self-pity and of dislike both for my companions and for the whole silly business of mountain climbing. I am stiff and tired, my legs and shoulders ache, in my hands and feet I detect undeniable symptoms of frostbite, the slopes above look impossibly long and steep, and my only desire is to lie down and sleep. The first halt works a subtle but profound change, and during the next spell, though it would be overstating the case to say that I am happy, I am not wholly insensitive to the grandeur of my surroundings, I am tolerant at least towards the minor shortcomings of my friends and willing to admit that mountaineering is not entirely unrewarding.
Eric Shipton, Mountains of Tartary page 581

This really grabs me:

"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges -- Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!"

(From "The Explorer", by Rudyard Kipling.)

"We made our summit. Yeah, I like the sound of that."

My dad, to me while descending the main trail in June. We turned around a few switchers above the cables due to snow, upon which my dad had never hiked. He had brought me to the Zone for the first time in 1992, during a day-hike attempt where I bonked at Trail Camp. He took to crampons like a champ. I've never been so proud.

I like your dad -- cool dude

I second that. Daddy/Daughter hikes are the best.

It'll probably take me at least that long to get my first set of crampons on.

"What had I so desperatly been trying to gain? There was more to the mountains that their hardest faces and most challenging ridges. Simply being among them was a privilige worth seeking." (Joe Simpson "This Game of Ghosts")

Or... there's always...

"Oh.. did I forget to mention that the snowcat goes up there? My Bad..." Moosetracks comment to me upon returning at dusk from a snowshoe from the Mammoth Lodge to Minnerat overview (and beyond).

Coming out of lurk mode for this one. A quote that quotes a quote:

'But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'

from W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951

We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved. ~Author Unknown

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. ~Ansel Adams