Ueli Steck Quotes

I spent the night on a sliver of rock high up on the east face of Long's Peak, climbing with Tom Frost, and slept at the icy feet of the Dru, listening to the lightning crack above me and the thunder roll down. I only did it to write about it. I would never go up on the Grotto Wall for fun.

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

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

I think, as a young guy, I was always drawn to being in wild places. Climbing was a logical extension of that.

There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.

All my life the only thing I've been good at has been climbing and throwing myself off big things.

Mountaineering is one of the most difficult sports - we are away from routine life for days, living in tents, and it requires high degree of physical and mental strength.

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous.

Stand at the base and look up at 3,000 feet of blankness. It just looks like there's no way you can climb it. That's what you seek as a climber. You want to find something that looks absurd and figure out how to do it.

I'll try anything once. It's always good to see peoples' faces surprised - surprised that I race, or that I surf, that I trekked through the Himalayas. As long as I don't die, I'm good.

If I know I make this much trouble, I never climb Everest.

The danger sensation is exciting. The challenge is to find new dangers.

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.

There's times when I'll be out in the middle of the track, standing in the curve, and I'll just laugh. 'What the heck am I doing right now? I'm sliding down the hill at crazy speeds and standing in freezing cold weather.'

The art of climbing is the art of survival. The best climber is the man or woman going in the most crazy places but surviving.

I'd rather climb Everest than go for a walk in the park.

I always wanted to try Mt. Everest since I was a kid. I never thought I would be able to do anything like that.

There is something addictive in space that makes you want to go back - like the mountain climbers who want to go back to the Himalayas although their fingers were cut by frostbite.

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.

The goal of climbing big, dangerous mountains should be to attain some sort of spiritual and personal growth, but this won't happen if you compromise away the entire process.

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.

Because it is there [famous explanation for wanting to climb Mount Everest].

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