Alpinism Quotes

It's really impressive what those like Messner and Walter Bonatti have done - they are a big part of the history of alpinism.

I'm a storyteller. I do this for the next generations. They have to know what traditional alpinism is all about.

Definition: Alpinism is the art of going through the mountains confronting the greatest dangers with the biggest of cares. What we call art here, is the application of a knowledge to an action.

Traditional alpinism is to go where the others are not going and to be self-reliant.

The people in Nepal don't care about alpinism; they just care about money.

Galen Clark was the best mountaineer I ever met, and one of the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends.

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.

There are three elements of mountaineering - difficulty, danger, and exposure. Difficulty is the technical aspect of it. Danger, it is best to avoid, but some people like to increase danger to a point where their success is dependent only on luck. And exposure, which is what truly defines Alpinism, is what you face in wild nature.

Look, I do not control alpinism. But maybe I was too successful. Many in the mountaineering scene - journalists, second-rate climbers, lecturers, so-called historians - had a problem with me for many 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.

The best alpinists are the ones with the worst memories.

Traditional alpinism is slowly disappearing. It is becoming sport, indoors on small walls with holds where you cannot really fall.

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.

Skiing is the pleasurable part of alpinism - way more pleasurable and fun than alpine climbing.