(cerro fitzroy peak)
But why climb? And why climb Patagonia, where storm and mountains are so cruel? I am asked why and I hate the question because the answer refused distillation, and my inability to produce an adequate quip makes me seem an inarticulate fool. There is no
sentence, no paragraph that captures the answer. Virtually everthing that I know I have learned I have learned in the mountains, for only in such an elemental realm is truth undiluted. Mountains, and mostly the mountains of Patagonia, have taught me what I know about terror and joy; friendship; mirth and gravity; courage and cowardice and when to take a risk; success and failure; persistence, patience, endurance, and opportunity. To them I owe my most extreme visions of beauty and most of what I know of myself. But climbing is so much more than a series of schoolmaster's lessons, and I resort to writin in the hope that when our shared journey is over you will feel the answer to the question why in your heart and guts as I feel it in mine. And if I fail at that task-- as I almost certainly will--then I hope you will at least enjoy these stories from my alpine life.
gregory crouch
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