In Cliffhangers, Barcott states how tragedy drives narratives.  Courage and passion are two themes that stuck out for me this week.  Cliffhangers in a simple way, explains how stories like Harrer’s experience on the North Face of the Eiger became one of the most well know pieces mountaineering literature.  Barcott says a mountain climb is a “ready-made narrative.”  What makes mountaineering the most literary of all sports?  Is it the drama?  The themes that follow mountaineering – courage, passion, obsession, risk, tragedy, and reward are so intense.  The reward is so high and the failure is so tragic and gruesome that haunts and inspires future climbers.  Mountaineering memoirs can grab any reader’s emotion. They take you all over the place; they are exciting, intense, and at some points poetic and mellow. The tone and mood of the story can change fast, much like climbing.

Barcott was able to draw the connection between the histories of explorations to modern day mountaineering.  In some ways modern mountaineering can be seen as the present day ocean explorations of the 15^th and 16^th Centuries.  The most well know ocean tales were the tragic and dramatic ones.  Barcott states “the climbing tale works best when the stakes are high and something goes wrong.”  The White Spider and Into Thin Air are two perfect examples of tragic mountaineering stories that might be told for centuries, (I hope).  Barcott seems to think our drive for exploration will always remain and it does seem like exploration is something that is engrained into human culture.  But if someone one day invents a helicopter that can somehow grab onto the thin air at Everest’s elevation and drop tourists off on the peak in some kind of space suit, will they look at the tragedies of each incident in mountaineering and wonder what the hell were thinking?  I certainly hope that never happens but we look at some of the early ocean explorations and wonder the same thing.  We hear and see pictures of early expeditions and criticize them, but we do not know the feeling of getting into a ship and exploring the unknown in hopes to find a piece of land.  Courage, passion, and optimism are continuing themes in any area of exploration.  However, mountaineering seems to have a little more obsession.

Barcott ends stating how these high elevation mountains are places humans cannot live for long periods of time.  They are barren, pure, and will always be playground for exploration because of this.  He mentions how mountains will always have the advantage.  Mountains could take the life of any mountaineer of any experience level and because of this they also happen to make pretty good sets for stories as well.