In Quotations

“Inspiring passion in family and friends has more enduring value than just staying alive for them” -Alex Lowe

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“The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

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“It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”

-Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat)

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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

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“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” -Yogi Berra

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“I know not all that may be coming, but be what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”

-Herman Mellville (Moby Dick)

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A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving – Lao Tzu

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“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well” – Jack London

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“I am as powerful as I allow myself to be.”

-Pam McPhee (Outdoor Educator, Masters in Social Work)

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“Have a great day, no matter what.”
-Brian Crowley (my Brother)

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“Getting to the top of any given mountain was considered much less important than how one got there: prestige was earned by tackling the most unforgiving routes with minimal equipment, in the boldest style imaginable.”
-Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air)

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“It’s wonderful to be back among the mountains that remind us of our vulnerability, our ultimate lack of control over the world we live in.
Mountains that demand humility and yield so much peace in return.”
-Alex Lowe
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“If you had been searching your whole life for something you really love and you found it,, what would you be willing to sacrifice?”
-Renan Ozturk (2011 interview about the Shark’s Fin)

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“Do not pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”
-Bruce Lee

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“All men dream, although not in the same way. The ones who dream by night in the dusty shelters of their minds, wake up the next day and discover that it was just vanity; but the ones who dream by day are dangerous men, because they can represent their dreams with the eyes open to make them possible”
-T.E. Lawrence (1922)

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We are alpinists.
We rejoice in movement over mountain terrain.
We spend our lives in motion seeking the vertical.
We find passage through unknown ground,
and in the process, we utilize the mountain face
as our palette and draw a stroke through its heart,
and sacrifice part of ourselves to its majesty.
The summit, although only a half-way mark in the process,
represents a goal achieved.
A first ascent on a beautiful objective.
-Graham Zimmerman (Revival In The Waddington, 2012)

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“Height has nothing to do with it. It is your strength that counts.”
-Lynn Hill

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“You’re going to suffer… you just have to embrace the cold.”
-Pat Cooke

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“Every mountaineer knows how mistaken are the valley-dwellers who persist in regarding the mountains as utterly barren and lacking in the gentler beauties”
-Showell Styles (Mountaineers Week-End Book 1950)

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“Things don’t fall into place. You have to put them into place yourself.”
-Tony Pica (N.E.S.T.A. Certified Personal Trainer)

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       “There was an element of unpredictability about the climb. We knew we were sticking our neck out farther than we ever had before.
It intrigued us and gave us spirit to think that we could do the climb while realizing there was a possibility we couldn’t.
That’s exactly where you want to be on a climb. If you were so certain of success, the spirit of adventure would be removed and you probably wouldn’t even go to the effort.”
-Ed Connor (Leader and sole-survivor of 1980, American ascent of Aconcagua)

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“Reaching the summit is optional. Getting down is mandatory.”
-Ed Viesturs

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“Ice is the great equalizer. None of us can climb it without adaptive equipment.
We just go one step further.”

-Malcolm Daly (Founder – Paradox Sports)

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“Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”
-T.S. Eliot

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“The ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
-Confucius

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“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”
-John Quincy Adams

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“Identifying and overcoming natural fear is one of the pleasing struggles intrinsic to climbing.”
-Alex Lowe

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“My success rate is much higher when I’m soloing. It’s easier to talk yourself into quitting when you have someone to talk to.”
-Amanda Tarr

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“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the wining game shot and missed.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in life, and that is why I succeed.”
-Michael Jordan

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“Together we knew toil, joy, and pain. My fervent wish is that the nine of us who were united in face of death, should remain fraternally united through life.”
-Maurice Herzog (Annapurna, 1950)

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“You’re never more alive than when you’re almost dead.”

-Tim O’Brien (The Things They Carried)

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“The vast majority of great things come not in one flash of progress, but the accumulation of small things”
-Roald Hoffman (1981 Nobel Prize – Chemistry)

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Definition:
Alpinism is the art of going through the mountains confronting the greatest dangers with the biggest of cares. What we call “art” here, is the application of a knowledge to an action”
-Rene Daumal

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“There are two kinds of climbers, those who climb because their hearts sing when they’re in the mountains— and all the rest.”
-Alex Lowe

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Wildness is a necessity. I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get into the mountains to learn the news.
-John Muir

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What I discovered as a mountain guide is, that people really are looking for nature and for a less protected world as they have it in their day to day life.
You always grow if there are new challenging things for you to have to deal with, and you wont find this in your office.
-Klaus Zwirner, 2002 (Austrian Mountain Guide)

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“As in any alpine region, the weather changeable, protection questionable, route-finding bewildering, rockfall frequent and descents tedious.
In short, its everything you could ever ask for.”
-Canadian Alpine Journal, 1993

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“This is the fucking-life! No?”
-Jean Afanassief (first Frenchman to summit Everest)

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“I say, if you live in New England and you don’t want to see Mount Washington in winter, move to Florida. That’s why they have Florida.”
-Joe Lentini (AMGA Certified Rock Guide)

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         On that climb the mountaineer will find every experience mountains can offer man in the menacing terror as well as in the beauty of nature at her most savage, and
The mountaineer who climbs it must combine in himself every attribute that marks a true man of the mountains.
The most modern climbing technique must have become second nature to him; yet he must feel in himself the same serene strength exhibited by the very first peasant who dared to put up his homestead among great and savage mountains.
He must be reliable to his teammates as he is self-reliant. He must be a ‘good companion’.”
-Heinrich Harrer (on climbing the Eiger North Face)

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“Climbing is not about summits or redpoints, it’s about partners. It’s about
sharing a rope with someone who can save your life. And that isn’t limited to
when you are in the mountains.”
-Erik Eisele

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Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down.

You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you’re no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn’t just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the sun is less visible even though closer.

These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It’s the sides of the mountains which sustain life, not the top.

-Robert Pirsig

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I try to see things as they are, not as I want them to be, not as I was taught they are, not as others want them to be, but as they are, stripped down. This is a really critical thing to do in the mountains; the mountains are not influenced by our perceptions of what they are, they just are, and you better see them in that light or they will hand your ass to you in a hurry.

-Will Gadd