“Sometime that afternoon, miles from the glacier and still miles from the car, I wonder: Why have I come here? It is not for the glamour of climbing mountains, for I have told no one where I will be. It is not for the solitude, although it is something I crave. Though I do not admit it to myself at the time, I do know: I come to the mountains for this dirty, sweating, hungry, bruised state. The Argentinean climber Rolando Garibotti names it: it is the search for ‘unmitigated contact with the natural world.’ I am there to strip away the human separation that hovers between me and the rest of the world, so that I can not only see but feel where I am, who I am, what I am. City life is more sanitary, and may be safer, but it has created a distance, physically and emotionally, between humans and the rest of the universe.”
