What should we do Mark, ignore the safety opportunities that now exist on the mountain – would you? The concept of adventure is personal and individual. You don’t get to decide what is and is not adventure.

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+1 to what Twight said. He’s a hero not only for his accomplishments within the arenas wherein we test ourselves, but for his class outside those venues. If anyone knows whereof he speaks, he does.

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Adam,

Thank you for including our attempt in this article, seriously. We laid everything out within the context of our ethics and came up short.

That trip happened in a different lifetime, not only for me but for climbing itself. In an era where the siege style efforts were normal we preached and practiced a way of climbing that emphasized doing things under our own power, expressing our skill, and willing to accept the risk and challenge naturally presented by the mountain. Of course we used the best technology available but very little of it, and we did not depend on it to make up a shortfall of ability or experience.

The technological crutch seems bigger these days but I think it only appears so due to the breadth of techno-crap available: dependence on it is likely not greater or lesser since this is a human issue, a nature-of-man issue and that hasn’t changed so much in the last 22 years. What has changed is both public and climber acceptance of this crutch as absolute normal. When man’s inventions are great enough to manipulate much of the danger out of the endeavor, when our collective experience is vast enough that what was once remarkable is more or less routine … well that’s when the irrelevant “firsts” start cropping up. Otherwise how would one characterize a banal accomplishment in a way that separates it from that of many, many others?

The youngest to get up there on top had a far different human experience than did Messner and Habeler when they made it without oxygen. And to compare the psychological hurdle of their ascent to more a commonly known sporting achievement, Bannister’s four-minute mile only lasted four minutes. To be sure, folks were concerned that his heart would blow up, etc. But Messner and Habeler carried the weight of uncertainty and incredible risk for days, and it only grew heavier in those final hours to the top. Even today, 32 years later, an unsupported ascent of Everest, without oxygen, i.e. climbing the peak under the most natural conditions possible, is unheard of while plenty of “Adventurepreneurs” have made their way to the summit and suffered under the delusion of having actually climbed there.

The roots of adventure still exist if anyone wants to go looking for them.

Mark Twight
SLC, Utah

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