Bouldering is Goofy.

[Alpine_Tom]

quote:

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Originally posted by ScottP:

I've read an account that is somewhat different than yours. Mallory was on a lecture tour after the 1922 expedition, trying to raise money for the 1924 attempt. Everywhere he went, he was asked mundane questions like: Was it cold? Where is Tibet? Why do you want to climb Everest? In exasperation, and not meaning to be taken seriously, he replied to the latter, "Because it is there."

Perhaps your quote comes form subsequent attempts to explain himself.

I don't know, I wasn't there.

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My reference is the book "First on Everest" by Tom Holzel ane Audrey Salkeld. Apparently the deathless words were printed in a NY Times article about a lecture he'd given there some time before. I quote:

It was the first paragraph of a half-page feature entitled "CLIMBING MOUNT EVEREST IS WORK FOR SUPERMEN"

Why did you want to climb Mount Everest? This question was asked of George Leigh Mallory, who was with both expeditions toward the summit of the world's highest mountain, in 1921 and 1922, and who now is in New York. He plans to go again in 1924, and he gave as the reason for persisting in these repeated attempts to reach the top, 'Because it's there.'

Prompted by the reporter's question, 'But hadn't the expedition valuable scientific results?' the article's second paragraph goes on to give Mallory's standard remarks about geology and adventure:

The geologists want a stone from the top. That will decide whether it is the top or the bottom of a fold. But these things are by-products. Do you think Shackleon went to the South Pole to make scientific observations? He used the observations he did make to help finance the next trip. Sometimes science is the excuse for exploration.

(end of quote, pp 295-296, paperback edition.

The italics are the text of the newspaper article as quoted by the book.)

It's enlightening to read this again; the first time I read the book a decade ago, I hadn't heard of Shackleton, but now he's as much a celebrity as Mallory currently is.

As I said, I can't think of a more valid justification for climbing something. What possible point is there for someone to risk their life for a first ascent of a peak or route, or a second ascent, or a thousandth ascent? To prove that I'm stronger than you? To impress the babes? To get on the cover of Climbing Mag? To get out of the house, or get out of mowning the lawn?

[This message has been edited by Alpine Tom (edited 09-18-2001).]

[hikerwa]

Dwayner, I also think that you forgot the all important multi chambered, self-priming, liquid/oil cooled, air and spring damped, blown glass bong.

[Dan_Petersen]

So, there's a Freudian slip. I definitely prefer climbing over mowning (moaning all the way, I might add) the lawn. I even prefer bouldering to mowning the lawn, and to mowing the lawn, too.