Samina Baig Quotes

I climb mountains.

Ever since the morning of May 29, 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and I became the first climbers to step onto the summit of Mount Everest, I've been called a great adventurer.

I told them, you can succeed - it's not likely the first time, maybe 25 per cent, but you CAN succeed. You can also die. By April 16 they had already been to camp III, well ahead of most teams.

On the summit of Everest, I had a feeling of great satisfaction to be first there.

I loved climbing because of the freedom, and having time and space. I remember coming off Everest for the last time, thinking of Dad and wishing that he could have seen what I saw. He would have loved it.

I'm kind of obsessed by Everest and all those men that mountaineer and take themselves to extreme limits.

This is one of my definitions of mountaineering: to go where others do not.

Today, to find a challenge is really hard. In the Alps, everything is done. The new lines, almost all of them are finished. So to find a new challenge, it's all beginning to go to speed.

I don't need to come back to Everest.

The urge to climb will never be explained. In olden days, perhaps it was a wish to reach the stars. Today, anyone so minded can buy a seat on a plane and feel himself master of the skies. Even so, he will not have rock under his feet, or air upon his face; nor will he know the silence that comes only on the hills.

I've always been a big fan of the Yeti, simply because I have an affiliation to Everest - who was the New Zealander, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy that conquered it.

I saw a mountain. I wanted to climb it.

You want to climb the mountain because it’s there and you know you can do it.

The people that first climbed Mt. Everest weren't scientists, right, they were adventurers. If you're an adventurer, you want to go yourself. It's different than a scientist, who is simply wanting to learn.

Half the charm of climbing mountains is born in visions preceding this experience - visions of what is mysterious, remote, inaccessible.

- Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest, Sir? - Because it is there.

Some day I'm going to climb Everest.

Why climb? That's a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I really asked that a lot on Everest. I can't justify it. I can't say it's for a good cause. All I can say is look at the history of exploration: it's full of vainglorious pursuits.

When I was super young, we were hiking to the top of the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. You know, when I was in my early teens, we went to Bolivia and climbed to the tops of the highest mountains in the Alps. You know, those experiences were so exciting that when I came back to school, I was actually quite bored.

Climbing, for me, is all about solving the magnitude of the problem. The best projects are the ones with big question marks hanging over them.

I love the outdoors. I love climbing mountains.

I happily claim expertise in no single aspect of climbing, which is what has kept the passion burning hot all these years.

The true alpinist doesn't want any infrastructure, he wants to go into the wild. And the odds of getting killed there are relatively high. And most people are sensible enough not to want that.

It's like a living process. You start out, and you see the Eiger north face, and you think, 'That's impossible.' Then you start to dream. Then you climb the Eiger north face. Then maybe you go to the Himalaya.

When I took on Everest, I'm not there for the views.