Longing for the higher altitudes

Because I am longing for the mountains I go to Rene Daumal for this week's inspiration.

There is one degree of separation between Rene and myself, he died on the same day I was born, 28 years before. He was a writer and poet, and I think in this short passage gives the best explanation of why someone might go through such discomfort to climb a mountain.

"You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again.
So why bother in the first place?
Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above.
One climbs, one sees.
One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen.
There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up.
When one can no longer see, one can at least still know."

Rene Daumal, March 1908 - May 1944

Climbing Kalapatar (5545m), view of Everest Base Camp middle left, 

with Khumbu Icefall snaking to the right

Self Importance- curse of the Western world

Nepal, Sagamartha National Park, on way back from Kalapatar III

I discovered the writing of Matthieu Ricard, (Buddhist monk, photographer, and author) while in Nepal in a small book store in Kathmandu. I understand he has lived and worked in the Himalayan region for forty years.

"By Breaking down our sense of self importance,
all we lose is a parasite that has long infected our minds.
What we gain is freedom, openness of mind, spontaneity,
simplicity, altruism: all qualities inherent in happiness."

Matthieu Ricard France 1946-

Escape from the heat

It is 34 degrees and the mercury will probably creep a little higher before the heat starts to leak out of the day for the cool of night.

Aspen, Snowmass Feb 2011

So naturally I think of the many beautiful winters I have spent in the mountains.

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens 1879-1955