"It is in these moments of fear and discomfort that I feel most alive. Moments when I want nothing more than to be safe and warm at home – this is when I need to lean into the uncertainty of the endeavor just a little further. How is it that such an objectively dangerous and useless pursuit can give so much meaning and purpose to my life? Life is not to be preserved, it is to be lived, and there I was living it feeling the cold, the fear, the awe of the landscape, the brush of the elements." — Miles Fullman "Journey to Utgard", Alpinist Magazine, issue 93
"I saw a river of clouds drifting through the canyon below us, swallowing the ground and remaking it into a moving mass of shadows, curves, and drifts that was the most spectacular portrayal of beauty my eyes have had the pleasure of taking in. I started crying in disbelief. Then crying in belief. How often is it that we have the opportunity to pause and take in the moments of beauty that surround us? I had not experienced something that forced me to see my own grandeur and the beauty of it all, or to reckon with the work that I've put into arriving here. I found myself in the center of all of that, celebrating this arrival as I felt my humanity swimming through my body as I swam my way up the chimney... A pause to let yourself listen to and sing with the birds, to witness the magnificence of your surroundings, and yourself within them; a pause to allow yourself to be in awe." — Heather Smallpage "The Fluidity of Grief and Beauty", AAC Guidebook, issue XVI
"Feeling insignificant because of landscapes that humble us is familiar to me, welcomed even. I much prefer the way the land makes me feel small, compared to the way humans have that same ability." — Heather Smallpage "The Fluidity of Grief and Beauty", AAC Guidebook, issue XVI
"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
"'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
"“So where’s your motor?” I answer without thinking, “In the river beneath my feet.” ... Beneath my shoes was solid ground, but the mountains are fluid, alive. They have a flow, an energy older and wiser that can carry me...I’d felt it with my whole being on Hope Pass, my legs absorbing energy from the earth, my torso bending to the slope of the hill, the slope showing me how to run on water beneath my feet, my body flowing uphill the whole way. The energy wasn’t mine, it was bigger than me. It was all around, limitless." — Katie Arnold Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World
"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
"I marvel at how quickly unfamiliar experiences transform into mundane reality." — 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
"I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order." — John Burroughs
"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 believe that fear is the most powerful and detrimental emotion in life and the biggest culprit keeping us from our dreams...Fear can keep you alive, but it can also keep you from living." — Jeremy Jones The Art of Shralpinism
"We know that we want to be more present, but very often we don’t do it. We need a friend or a teacher to remind us. The Earth can be that teacher. It is always there, greeting your feet, keeping you solid and grounded." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Walk
"There are things you can’t control, so you’d better know how you’re going to react to them." — Laurence Gonzales Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
"When the air chills, I, too, watch myself turn, temporarily, to crystal. Rime slowly forms along the loose strands of my hair, in thicker and thicker flowers of white and silver, encrusting my lashes until I have to rub my eyes or blink hard to keep my vision clear." — Katie Ives Alpinist Magazine, Issue 77, "Of Thin Ice"
"The mountains do not exist for our amusement. They owe us nothing, and they ask nothing of us." — The Freedom of the Hills
