{"id":5570,"date":"2017-05-01T05:33:28","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T05:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/05\/01\/old-mountaineers-and-bold-mountaineers\/"},"modified":"2017-05-01T05:33:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T05:33:28","slug":"old-mountaineers-and-bold-mountaineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/05\/01\/old-mountaineers-and-bold-mountaineers\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Mountaineers and Bold Mountaineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'm no climber, but I love walking in the mountains. On a solo backpacking adventure in the magnificent Sierra Nevada some years back I overheard a snatch of conversation:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There are old mountaineers, and there are bold mountaineers, but there are no old<\/em> bold<\/em> mountaineers.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ueli Steck, the great Swiss climber, is dead at 40<\/a>, having fallen near Everest.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I have repeatedly asked myself, why I do this. The answer is pretty simple: because I want to do it and because I like it. I don\u2019t like being restricted. When I climb, I feel free and unrestricted; away from any social commitments. This is what I am looking for.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have a better answer. Steck climbed because he was very, very good at it, and we humans love doing what we are good at. Freedom from social commitments can be had in far less perilous ways.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I am reminded of something the great marathoner Bill Rodgers once said when asked why he ran and won 26.2 mile races at a blistering sub-five-minute-per-mile pace. "I like to be be fit." (I quote from memory) But of course one can be very fit indeed without running such a punishing distance at such a punishing pace.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I'm no climber, but I love walking in the mountains. On a solo backpacking adventure in the magnificent Sierra Nevada some years back I overheard a snatch of conversation: There are old mountaineers, and there are bold mountaineers, but there are no old bold mountaineers. Ueli Steck, the great Swiss climber, is dead at 40, … Continue reading “Old Mountaineers and Bold Mountaineers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,39,221,493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiking-and-backpacking","category-human-predicament","category-psychology-and-personality-typology","category-running"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}