|
Backcountry Quotes Backcountry Wisdom and Wag of the Ages |
Everything from embarrassing words to forbidden knowledge, to eloquent. Find it here, and you decide what category the quotes fit. | |
|
"The sensual caress of waist deep cold smoke... glory in
skiing virgin snow, in being the first to mark the powder with
the signature of their run." "I want to solve a climbing problem in the mountains, not in the sporting goods store." -- Reinhold Messner "Backcountry skiing is full of surprises" -- David Goodman, from preface, Classic Backcountry Skiing "A surprising characteristic of corn snow is its abrasive quality" -- Introduction, Front Range Descents "It's a turn, not a religion." -- Allan Bard (AKA The Great Bardini) "We [climbers] demonstrate in the most stunning way of all -- at the risk of our lives -- that there is no limit to the effort man can demand of himself. This quality is the basis of all human achievement...it can never be proved enough. I consider that we climbers -- that I -- serve all humanity. We prove that there is no limit to what man can do." -- Walter Bonatti "The Matterhorn is climbed for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost it is climbed because it is the Matterhorn." -- Gaston Rebuffat, Between Heaven and Earth "Had God not driven man from the
Garden of Eden, "I understand the only blasphemy -- to willingly jeopardize my life, which I have done, and it sickens me..." -- John Long "A high mountain ascent is first and foremost a pretext for friendship." -- Gaston Rebuffat, Between Heaven and Earth "I find that agnostics also pray." -- Greg Child, The Other Side of Luck "The Mountains help to reawaken forgotten dreams." -- Gaston Rebuffat, Between Heaven and Earth "Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Bible, Romans 5:3-4 "Boyer [a telemarker] is hard to distinguish from the best alpine skiers." Photographer Christian Pondella, Telemarktips.com. "Climb above all with your head. Always measure what your want to do, against what your are capable of doing. Mountaineering is above all a matter of conscience." -- Gaston Rebuffat, Between Heaven and Earth "But how splendid is this intimate dialogue between man and the forces of nature!" -- Gaston Rebuffat, Between Heaven and Earth "The mountains are beautiful but they are not worth dying for." -- Greg Child, The Other Side of Luck "What is important is the man
who is born in the course of the ascent." “Real guides cannot be heroes. When somebody gets into trouble in the mountains, we go after him, take the necessary risks, and bring him down. Nothing else counts." -- Rudolf Aemmer "Rise early...One seldom regrets having made an early start, but one always regrets having set off too late; first for reasons of safety, the adage 'it is later than you think' is very true in the mountains, but also because of the strange beauty of the moment." -- Gaston Rebuffat, On Snow and Rock "The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him." -- Robert Benchley "Are they from the circus?" -- Third-world local in Tuva (former Soviet Union) observing North Face clad adventure travelers "A goal without a plan is just a wish." "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." -- Albert Einstein "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -- Muriel Strode "I have thousands of feet of film showing the same guy jumping off a different rock and of different guys jumping off the same rock." -- ski film pioneer Dick Barrymore, Breaking Even "I used to have a wild time with three women
until 5 a.m., but I am getting older. In the Olympic Village
here, I will live it up with five women, but only until 3 a.m." "Your children will ski as well as you
do for one day in your life. The next day, they'll be better." "I can accept failure, but I can't accept
not trying." "I am not the editor of a newspaper,
and shall always try to do right and be good, so that God will
not make me one." "It was a longhorn story: A point here,
a point there, and a lot of bull in between." "You are one with your skis and nature. This is something that develops not only the body but the soul as well, and it has a deeper meaning for a people than most of us perceive." -Fridtjof Nansen "The thing to be wished for, is not that
the mountains should become easier, but that men should become
wiser and stronger." "If you don't do it this year, you'll be one
year older when you do." "...Skiing is the best way in the world to
waste time." "[Aspen] has been preserved like it's been
sprayed with hairspray and it won't flow in the wind anymore." "It is way harder to do that sort of thing
on telemark..." "How could I live without powder?" "When I’m
not skiing, I’m usually throwing gainers and spins off
the roofs of houses into trees and bushes...my worst injury
while skiing occurred last May when I shattered my heel...That
was my first big injury since broke my back a few years
ago. The lesson I learned was to be careful." "Ski alpinism and freeskiing are two very
different things." "Noah's Ark was built by amateurs, the
Titanic by professionals." "Go back...go...back...gooooo...baaackk!" "I don’t even work with clients
if I don’t like them." He thinks snowmobiles are noisy and stinky, but realizes that “some people would say that about me, too.” -- Bob Athey, Wizard of the Wasatch "Have you ever really hugged a ponderosa?" -- Michael Engelhard, Where the Rain Children Sleep. "I hope it doesn't happen again." -- Seth Morrison, after surviving an avalanche. "What should you do if you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?" -- Anon "Visitors to Whistler Blackcomb can now venture into the backcountry without leaving the ski area boundary." -- Internet report "Telemark gear sales are three times that of randonnee, but randonnee is growing twice as fast." -- Peter Metcalf, Black Diamond equipment "Human power is its own end." -- Karl Marx "I do love my Dynafits...Sometimes at night I wake up in my gear closet heavily petting them as if they were my high school prom date." -- Anon, web forum "They just turned on the television, and you're the entertainment of the day." -- Wayne Failing, Adirondack guide "Giving money and power to the government is like giving car keys and whisky to teenage boys." -- P.J. O’Rourke "I have to say that telemark touring
without a free pivot is STUPID." "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." -- T.S. Eliot "He who would travel happily must travel light."
|
||
-
-
-
Custom Search