Ueli Steck Quotes

When I was climbing, I built up a close relationship with the Sherpa people.

I am not sure the others are as committed as Rob Hall and Scott Fischer. I think there is more business now, and I know it will be impossible to stop this Everest business.

When you're climbing at high altitudes, life can get pretty miserable.

What we can do now is contribute to a clearer understanding of what happened that day on Everest in the hope that the lessons to be learned will reduce the risk for others who, like us, take on the challenge of the mountains.

With a tennis racket strapped tightly to her hiking pack, Martina Navratilova began her ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. The tennis legend had visions of celebrating at the summit of Africa's highest peak by hitting a couple balls to see how far they might fly in the thin air at 19,341 feet.

I was making a film called The White Tower at the foot of Mont Blanc - the one thing I learned from that experience was that it's more difficult to go down a mountain than to go up. A lot of people don't realize that.

When I went to Everest, I underestimated things. I just didn't know what altitude could do. Or the cold - I especially didn't appreciate the cold. It can be just debilitating, and things can happen so quickly.

I want to ski down Mount Cho Oyu in the Himalayas when I am 85, descending from a height of 8,201 meters.

The Sherpas play a very important role in most mountaineering expeditions, and in fact many of them lead along the ridges and up to the summit.

In fact, Tibet is one of the most popular European tourist attraction of asia.

I used to climb mountains a lot; I decided to go to Pakistan to climb K2, the world's second-highest mountain. I didn't get quite to the top.

I am immediately disinterested when I hear mountain-climbing stories.

As I get more experienced, I love the idea of going into big mountains and doing big climbs. But the problem is, it's getting more dangerous, especially alpine climbing.

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.

Everest is not real climbing. It's rich people climbing. It's a trophy on the wall, and they're done... When I say I wish I'd never gone, I really mean that.

People get very excited about very high elements. That's why Mount Everest is so important - it's not the most difficult mountain, but it's the most famous because it's the tallest.

Many people have been getting too casual about climbing Everest. I forecast a disaster many times.

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.

Right now, I'm just focused on the 8,000-meter peaks. I don't know what's next. I don't think I will get tired of climbing.

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

You can show up at Everest having never really climbed before, because it's like hiking, basically. You can't show up on Meru and start up the thing unless you have years and years of experience. Climbing and spending time on the mountains is really the only way you can train.

Climbing has so much more culture than all other activities put together. There is no culture in tennis, just a few names, a few dates. No big culture in soccer. But we have thousands of books, great philosophers, thinkers, painters.

Alpinism means you go by yourself with your own responsibility, knowing that you could die. But Everest now is more like ski tourism: preparing the piste, helping people go up, setting oxygen bottles near the summit.

The best climbers no longer go to the 8000ers, but to the most difficult mountains in the world which are 6000 or 7000-meter-peaks. There they find any kind of playground. But it is a pity that the really good climbers have fewer opportunities to finance their expeditions because so much attention is taken away by the Everest tourists.