For this week we had to read White Spider – a mountaineering classic and it has been rather helpful to me at least in decoding the enigmatic question we have all been asking since seminar began: why climb? White Spider does not hold all of the possible answers to this question. No, it is a question that has just as many answers as there are mountaineers (for that matter how many mountaineers there ever is, was, or will be) but to me it has put a rather large dent in the equitation.

The deadly Spider of the Eiger has claimed many lives in numerous tragic ways, just as the book recounts. The Eiger however is not the highest mountain in the world. It is not even the highest mountain in Europe. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of higher mountains in the world. So what it is about the Eiger that is so enticing, so ensnaring, that dozens of people have surrendered their lives to attempt her summit, many failing to do that? She is difficult. She is unrelenting and bitter. Not open to be simply summited. That is the answer at least in part to the question of the semester – the challenge and conquest. Yes, we have discussed this before. I feel that right now I am not explaining it very well but my understanding of the question, like the answer itself, is not exactly an easy thing to put into words.

To the numerous mountaineers in this book the Eiger might as well be as tall as Mt. Everest. It took many expeditions until one finally successfully summited this deadly side of the mountain, and I believe it is the unique challenge that it possesses that culls in climbers to not merely test the mountain and find a path but themselves. The number of tragedies that transpired on the mountain show that it takes more then simply skill to reach the top. The number of capable climbers who died on it were astounding, it took resolve, and even more then resolve it took luck.

I believe that this is a mountaineering classic not just because it is part the memoir of Harrier and his successful climb of the spider and Eiger, but it offers a unique perspective on the motives reasons and emotions behind climbing. It is also very much unlike anything we have read in this seminar before.

Our other reading “Cliffhangers: The Fatal Descent of the Climbing Memoir” proved interesting in and of itself. I had a difficult time deciphering what exactly was the main point of the article. It recounted several climber’s journals and recounting with a critical eye but I could not gather what Barcott was trying to point out. I assume from the title that the driving point was to say that the days of the great climbing memoirs are over. In this day and age the recounting of climbing is not nearly as meaningful or powerful as it was; especially when he is recounting Stacey Allison’s journal and describes her very much with the tone of a complaining teenage girl. I do not know if I agree with any of Barcott’s ideas, there have been a lot of great mountaineering books published in the last couple of decades (including ones we are going to read for this class) and I find Barcott kind of cynical and overly idealistic.