"Resilience doesn't come from comfort. And so I'm not wishing you a life free of discomfort. I'm wishing you a life where you can handle the discomforts that are inevitably going to come. And I think about that's what my journey in the mountains so much has taught me is not how to prevent all of the things that don't feel good, but how to lean into the ones that are there to teach us." — Melissa Arnot Reid Outside Podcast, "Climbing Everest is Easy Compared to Surviving an Abusive Parent"
"A rottener mass of rock is inconceivable. The core may still be solid but the "surrounding tuffs" are seeking a lower level in large quantities." — Albert Ellingwood First to Climb Lizard Head, Outing Magazine
"Fear lives in a past experience or in a future assumption of what might happen." — Kimmy Fasani Outside Podcast: What Snowboarding Has to do With Parenthood, Loss, and Cancer
"Because nature is not a place to visit. Nature is who we are." — Ada Limón You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World
"I don't like fear. I want to win against it. It keeps me alert, but I won't obey it." — Jan Farrell, speed skier Hard Pack Ski Magazine, Issue 5, "The Speed Racers"
"Kai Whaley during his unplanned descent of Shaolin (V17), Red Rock National Conservation Area, NV. (I love the phrase "unplanned descent" to describe falling!)" — American Alpine Club Guidebook XIV
"The air is thinner, clearer, the views longer. You can see every which way, in all directions—bowls and cirques, high ridges, mountains beyond mountains. You are in the air, almost flying. The climb has been taxing, but here at the edge of the sky, the mountain gives you all its energy, fills you with a kind of exhilaration you rarely feel down low, in the trees. Here you are closer to the sky. You are sky." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"'Your body is ready. Your body knows what do. Trust that and get out of your own way.'" — Natalie via Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"Every climb feels impossible until you stand on top." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"I marvel at how quickly unfamiliar experiences transform into mundane reality." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Words amidst tragedy rarely if ever touch the void of grief, let alone fill it. The need to speak is an attempt to bring something back...to undo something that can’t be undone. And platitudes aren’t all that comforting. Regardless, someone always says something like “At least they died doing what they loved.” The search for a silver lining, the stumbling to make sense of death, doesn’t make loss any less painful...Say what you can and mean what you say and when there are no more words just let the silence speak. For a moment, let the silence scream." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"I secure a short length of rope in a coil over my neck and look up the slope until the light fades into a black question mark." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"To the oldest part of our brain, the experience of climbing is interpreted as an act of survival and survival is stressful work...We fight with our conscious and subconscious minds alike and the whole game is learning to manage the stress response and ultimately work in tandem with our brain and body in pursuit of a goal. In that way, it becomes an act of mindfulness because in order to survive, we’re forced to distill order from chaos and focus on the now. The discomfort of it all is offset by the highs that come with it. It’s beautiful and breathtaking and life-affirming in a way that few other sports can ever be." — Cory Richards The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos Within
"Was I the person, the climber, that I believed I had been? Those events shaped who I was, and now they were receding into the distance." — Chris Jones Climbing Fitz Roy, 1968
"To pit oneself against the mountain is necessary for every climber: to pit oneself merely against other players, and make a race of it, is to reduce to the level of a game what is essentially an experience… the mere setting up of a record is of very minor importance. What he values is a task that, demanding of him all he has and is, absorbs and so releases him entirely." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"If you cultivate your ability to create Adventure, wherever you are, you will feel alive." — Paul Ramer Backcountry Magazine, Issue 2, "Where's the Adventure?"
"Maybe it’s the sun’s first light on these ancient cliffs, or the heavy current of the river, the feeling that this place exists outside of human time. But here, I start to feel like myself again." — Hilary Oliver She Explores, Episode 3, "Being Here: How the Outdoors Make Us Feel"
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." — John Burroughs
"The pilgrim contents herself always with looking along and inwards to mystery, where the mountaineer longs to look down and outwards onto total knowledge." — Nan Shepherd The Living Mountain
"Focusing on safety, or security, is the biggest inhibition to having a new adventure... To hide from the exposure of our circumstance is also to hide from the beauty of it." — Lucas Roman Alpinist Magazine, Issue 81, "Exposure"
