The sport of mountaineering is a very individualistic sport.  The reason for climbing mountains and the reason why mountaineers do the things they do is therefore just as individualistic as the sport itself.  Throughout this semester we have tried time and time again to pin down the reason to why people climb, why they risk their lives in order to scale something that has no real benefit as a whole to the entirety of the human race.  I believe though the work The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer seeks to answer this question to the best of the authors ability.

He begins by describing past and future attempts at climbing the north face of the Eiger whether they were successful or not he presented as many stories as possible.  With each story and account he attempts to explain at least in part the reason why said person attempted the climb of a mountain which many considered the hardest in Europe even though it was neither the largest nor most imposing.  With each of these accounts he shows that some climbed it to conquer it others out of love for the sport and many other reasons which were stated in the text.  However, one common thread that the entire text held and one link that drew every account together was the idea of climbing for the love of climbing.  What I mean by this is that each individual may say they have a different reason from the other on why they are climbing, however, one can see that each is climbing for the love of the sport.  In addition to this thought an interesting thread that is presented not as a main theme that is shown, but is prevalent none the less is the idea of a white dominated climbing society still into the modern era.  In this text one can see that many of the accounts that are presented are not necessarily middle class white men, however, they are white men predominately with the odd ball every so often.

The dangers that this mountain presents are numerous on the north face according Harrer.  Indeed, it was seen as a death wish when one went to climb the north face of the Eiger and many questioned why one would want to climb a mountain that would most certainly kill whomever chose to climb the mountain.  Many professors and many other adults looked down upon those that chose to climb the north face as we would look down upon many extreme athletes deeming them as immature risk takers that were in effect throwing there lives away and for what climbing a hard to climb mountain that would serve no greater purpose.  Indeed, is this not the case for all sports aren’t they merely done for our own reasons that have no higher or greater purpose we can mask our intentions in any sport especially mountaineering and state the reason that we are climbing, however, at the root of the reason there will always be a variance that will change person to person as they attempt to explain the reasoning behind their climb.