"I envision the future version of myself that has transcended a difficult moment, that has figured out a tricky situation, that has the answer to a burning question. I imagine her out there waiting for me, and it’s a sort of comfort. Future me has gotten through this. ...Sometimes I’d arrive at that place up in the distance and realize I was the future me I had been looking at." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"Well shit, at least you tried." — Unknown
"Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Suffering is ultimately created by a resistance to what is, by a sense that the universe owed you something different than what you got, that things were supposed to be a different way." — Carolyn Highland Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness
"The important thing is to go as far as possible despite the uncertainty, instead of wondering if it might have been possible after not even trying." — Kei Taniguchi Alpinist Magazine, Issue 68, "Pandora's Box" by Akihiro Oishi
"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default." — JK Rowling Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination
"It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet and what is sand." — Madeleine L'Engle The Summer of the Great-Grandmother
"What counts as valuable seems arbitrary; the human demarcation line seems blurry. Even for an expert, it’s hard to tell what’s natural or native at this point because the changes in the ecosystem are similarly subtle and blurred. Ranchers argue that irrigation smooths out the seasonal variation in stream flow and recharges the aquifer, creating habitat, making it better for people and wildlife. But it’s not necessarily historically native animals that would be there if ranchers weren’t watering the land. That’s the tricky part of trying to recreate an unclear past." — Heather Hansman Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West
"'We can’t restore the river because it would require taking out the dam, but we can understand how the dam impacts ecosystems, then try to understand how to best manage it,' [Anya] says. 'You can’t always manage for restoration, but you can try to manage for a healthy ecosystem.' Healthy is a tricky, subjective goal. Jack believes that for the future of healthy rivers, and to hold onto some modicum of pristineness, we should try to keep the Green as wild as we can. The dams have broken the rivers, that’s inarguable, but they’re there. So now, he says, it’s important to try to manage the rivers in as natural a way as possible and to gather as much data as possible to try to figure out what natural looks like. It’s a combination of looking realistically at the ecosystem and working smartly within the bounds of what we need to exist." — Heather Hansman Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West
"The reason why we won’t face up to our problems with the environment is that we are the problem. It’s not the corporations out there, it’s not the governments, it’s us. We’re the ones telling the corporations to make more stuff, and make it as cheap and as disposable as possible. We’re not citizens anymore. We’re consumers. That’s what we’re called. It’s just like being an alcoholic and being in denial that you’re an alcoholic. We’re in denial that each and every one of us is the problem. And until we face up to that, nothing’s going to happen. So, there’s a movement for simplifying your life: purchase less stuff, own a few things that are very high quality that last a long time, and that are multifunctional." — Yvon Chouinard The Usual Montauk, "Don of the Dirtbags: An Interview with Yvon Chouinard"
"I’d had this idea that I could push myself physically through anything if I was tough and smart and rugged, and that the push would show me something about myself and my place on the river. That being able to do things alone was a sign of strength, not fear. I’d thought I could conquer the landscape and fully understand the problem of water use. But none of that is true. The tough part is connection, looking across lines and knowing when to push the lever on what you think is right." — Heather Hansman Downriver: Into the Future of Water in the West
"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." — Albert Einstein
"As complex as the brain is, the world is more so. The brain cannot process and organize all the data that arrive. It cannot come up with a reasonable course of action if everything is given equal weight and perceived at equal intensity. That is the difficulty with logic: It’s step-by-step, linear. The world is not." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"To the brain, the future is as real as the past. The difficulty begins when reality doesn’t match the plan. In nature, adaptation is important; the plan is not. It’s a Zen thing. We must plan. But we must be able to let go of the plan, too. Under the influence of a plan, it’s easy to see what we want to see." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"Rational (or conscious) thought always lags behind the emotional reaction." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"We think we believe what we know, but we only truly believe what we feel." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"In this new social media era, the portrayal of women in the backcountry has taken a turn for the fabricated. Instagram users have likely seen the emerging trend of imagery of perfectly coifed women in fashion outdoor wear staring out at beautiful landscapes. These hyper-curated photos saturate Instagram feeds, and this phenomenon is beginning to have a hand in shaping the portrayal of women in outdoor adventure. The rise of this trend has shifted the focus to the aesthetics of the shot rather than the endeavor itself, let alone the skills required for it. One of the big questions centers on the message this category of outdoor portrayals sends to women about what the focus of backcountry adventures 'should' be. In this age of the social media-ization of adventure lifestyles, the line is more blurred than ever about what’s realistic and what’s not." — Guest Editor Misadventures Magazine, "The Reality of Women's Sports According to Instagram"
"Art is work." — Unknown
"We construct an expected world because we can’t handle the complexity of the present one, and then process the information that fits the expected world, and find reasons to exclude the information that might contradict it." — Charles Perrow Normal Accidents
"If he underestimated the hazard, he was also vulnerable to overestimating his ability to deal with it. In this context, as Gonzales writes, 'the word "experienced" often refers to someone who’s gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than others.' We think of experience as a classroom, yet it can also be a prison." — Jill Fredston and Laurence Gonzales Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches
"With his ability came an unasked-for authority. He was looked to as a leader and often relied upon to make decisions about potential danger." — Jill Fredston Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches
