“In this strange world where everything tends toward the vertical, one’s notion of balance is quite peculiar: all these vistas of chaos render one’s first impressions unreliable”(Herzog,pg. 98). I’m not sure exactly why but I find this quote of the book especially interesting when dealing with mountaineering and the “strange world where everything tends toward the vertical.” It deals with the craziness and unpredictably of mountain climbing, as well as the state of the climbers with less oxygen to help brain function, giving a picture of a skewed climber, in a chaotic, unbalanced situation when on the mountain. It gives insight into the world of a mountain climber while climbing, and the fact that their worlds go vertical and leave the balance a little off. Knowingly going on an adventure up a mountain, Annapurna at that, it seems it would be hard to commit to such a challenge, but with Herzog’s description of the climbers they seem up for the challenge, and unlike the frequently discussed selfishness that is brought up in class, Herzog writes “That was our party– all hardened mountaineers, all men of marked individuality and strong character. All of them devoutly longed to go to the Himalaya, which we had talked about for so many years. Lacunal put it in a nutshell: ‘We’d go if we had to crawl there.’ Let me put it clearly on record that their zeal for the adventure was entirely unselfish. From the start every one of them knew that nothing belonged to him and that he must expect nothing on his return.” (Herzog, pg. 4). Starting the book with this in mind gives a new optimism and sincerity to this journey, and puts in the readers mind a different picture of these mountaineers than some of the other works read in class, and definitely a different picture than that of Barcott.

In Julie Rak’s article, she writes “the local hunters who were his guides do not climb on the basis of economic need but for ‘the danger itself-the alternation of hope and fear, the continual agitation that these emotions make in the soul'” (Rak, pg. 113). This brings in the aspect of the why the guides and hunters climb, which could be seen purely as economic and financial stability, but this shows a deeper meaning, of self reflection, and emotional provocation to further oneself in his practice, especially when guiding or hunting for a living. Reading further though, it seems climbing started to become a national pride issue, and who could summit more mountains, first, fastest, and  most. This attempt at national pride is written in a comparison to masculinity by Rak, and the correlation between the two. She described “masculine heroism” in relation to mountaineering. This heroism can be seen as a driving factor in climbing and the need to be part of the world that “tends toward vertical,”especially when discussing the “brotherhood of the rope” and the intentional masculine heroism it insinuates. The issues of feminism and mountaineering combined is one that can come up in many mountaineering adventures, and for the reason that men truly do more high elevation climbing than women, but Herzog’s genuine trust that his “brotherhood’s” intentions were unselfish, brings some optimism to the class and the discussions.