Climbing Quotes - Page 6

• Sometimes the best gear for a climb is a good excuse.

  John Sherman

  Gears, Sometimes, Excuse

  John Sherman (2012). “Sherman Exposed: Slightly Censored Climbing Stories”, p.79, The Mountaineers Books

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• It's all bullshit on Everest these days.

  Edmund Hillary

  Bullshit, These Days, Everest

  "We knocked the bastard off" by David Fickling, www.theguardian.com. March 13, 2003.

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• Just why is Yosemite climbing so different ? Why does it have techniques, ethics and equipment all of its own ? The basic reason lies in the rock itself. Nowhere else in the world is the rock so exfoliated, so glacier-polished and so devoid of handholds. All of the climbing lines follow vertical crack systems. Every piton crack, every handhold is a vertical one. Special techniques and equipment have evolved through absolute necessity.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Lying, Rocks, Special

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• I am too slow to be a good climber, so I film instead.

  Wanda Rutkiewicz

  Film, Mountain Climbers, Mountaineering

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• If we ever have children and they become climbers I'll tell them, Stay away from expeditions. They'll make you poor and neurotic.

  Greg Child

  Children, Poor, Mountain Climbers

  Greg Child (1998). “Thin Air: Encounters in the Himalayas”, p.158, Mountaineers Books

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• Maybe Himalayan climbing is just a bad habit, like smoking, of which one says with cavalier abandon, must give this up some day, before it kills me.

  Greg Child

  Giving, Smoking, Habit

  Greg Child (2012). “Mixed Emotions: Mountaineering Writings of Greg Child”, p.81, The Mountaineers Books

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• C'est pas de l'alpinisme, ça, c'est la guerre.

  Armand Charlet

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• You've climbed the highest mountain in the world. What's left ? It's all downhill from there. You've got to set your sights on something higher than Everest.

  Willi Unsoeld

  Nature, Travel, Sight

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• I continued with whatever 'qualified climbers' I could con into this rather unpromising venture.

  Warren G. Harding

  Venture, Qualified, Climbers

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• Many have questioned the quality of this sort of achievement, deploring the use of pitons, tension traverses and expansion bolts, but the record speaks for itself. This is a technical age and climbers will continue in the future to look for new routes. There is nothing more satisfying than being a pioneer.

  Allen Steck

  Achievement, Age, Quality

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• There was a climber named Bridwell On grade I's he did well. But on grade VI, he got into a fix and rappelled to the talus and hid well.

  Eric Jay Beck

  Grades, Wells, Climbers

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• My once-keen analytical mind has become so dulled by endless hours of baking in the hot sun, thrashing about in tight chimneys, pulling at impossibly heavy loads, freezing my ass off.... so that now my mental state is comparable to that of a Peruvian Indian, well stoked on coca leaves.

  Warren G. Harding

  Mind, Hot, Baking

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• Every time I go out and do something, Hans panics and starts trying to beat me. He's like a dog humping your leg.

  Dean Potter

  Dog, Trying, Legs

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• While ice is not really alive, it is certainly animate. It exists in an dynamic state of perpetual vibration, flux and movement. Enjoy its existence, and its safe passage in the mountains.

  Wil McCarthy

  Ice, Mountain, Movement

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• Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports... all the others are games.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Funny, Sports, Real

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• Climbing is about pioneering new routes, exploring new ground, facing the unknown. Those hooked on climbing the normal routes on the eight-thousanders will miss all theat. They are wasting the best years of their climbing lives.

  Doug Scott

  Eight, Years, Missing

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• The whole idea of comparing climbers is ludicrous. It would be like sitting Van Gogh down with Rembrandt and saying, Ready, get set, go.

  Pat Ament

  Ideas, Would Be, Sitting

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• Everyone praises the views you get from mountain tops, but no one talks about the views that they block.

  Nils Kjaer

  Block, Views, Mountain

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• To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling.

  Al Alvarez

  Mistake, Routine Life, Hiking

  "Our enduring desire to court deadly risk" by Peter Beaumont, www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2012.

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• A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him, and leaving something of himself upon it.

  Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington

  Adventure, Men, Leaving

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• I've climbed with some of the best climbers in the world, more importantly, to me, they are some of the best people in the world. That's another reason why I climb.

  Jim Wickwire

  Funny, People, World

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• There is no difference between religion and politics. Both involve lies and fanatical beliefs that generaly defy logic... Just like rock climbing.

  David Schuller

  Funny, Lying, Rocks

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• Just a reminder - a guidebook is no substitute for skill, experience, judgment and lots of tension.

  Charlie Fowler

  Funny, Skills, Judgment

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• Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment. It forces you to pay attention, because if you don't, you won't succeed, which is minor - or you may get hurt, which is major. Instead of years of meditation, you have this activity that forces you to relax and monitor your breathing and tread that line between living and dying. When you climb, you always are confronted with the edge. Hey, if it was just like climbing a ladder, we all would have quit a long time ago.

  Duncan Ferguson

  Hurt, Men, Hiking

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• I had the unique experience the next day: placing sixteen bolts in a row. It was just blank and there was no way around. But it was a route worth bolting for, and after a time I began to take an almost perverse joy in it, or at least in doing a good job.

  Royal Robbins

  Jobs, Unique, Next Day

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