Thursday, July 10, 2008

People go to mountains

This article on mountaineering and its risks has some of the best comments that I've seen on an NYT piece. There are some treacly ones in there, but most are pretty good - the title of this post references #14. Anyone who's done any serious (or not so serious) hiking has taken some risks - but sometimes the risks ain't got nothing to do with it, as the article says.

Some of my stupidest moments:
  • wearing all cotton on a 3-day tramp through rain and a blizzard in New Zealand
  • lying and saying I was an experienced ocean kayaker so that I didn't have to hire a guide in Abel Tasman
  • free-climbing portions of Electric Peak in Yellowstone
  • cooking steak in the backcountry even after having a run-in with a huge bear
  • forgetting to put on sunscreen on the back of my neck pretty much all the time
Hypothermia, drowning, free falling 3000 feet, getting gobbled by a grizzly, melanoma: I live a live of risk and adventure.

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