For my final paper topic, I want to explore the aspect of the environmental impacts on the mountain landscape, the first article we read for the class dealt with waste on Mount Everest and I have found other research that deals with the environmental impacts that mountaineering has on our landscapes. Here are a…
Reading Response, Week 9
Well, shit happens.
by mel •
After reading many works about experienced climbers, who train for climbs, bring proper equipment, travel companions, and have knowledge about the risks they are about to endure, reading “‘Shit Happens’: The Selling of Risk in Extreme Sport” by Catherine Palmer is an interesting take on extreme sports, including mountaineering, and the commodification behind them. Not…
Reading Response, Week 7
Week 7
by mel •
“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…
Reading Response
White Spider & Cliffhangers
by mel •
“That’s a question that baffles me. It perplexes me. I can’t justify it. I can’t say its for a good cause. All I can say is, look at the history of exploration; it’s full of vainglorious pursuits” was said to a reporter by Jon Krakauer (Barcott). With this in mind and this semesters themes, “vainglorious…
Reading Response, Week 5
by mel •
Wanting Children and Wanting K2This week I focused more on the online readings over the book and found “‘Wanting the Children and Wanting K2’:The incommensurability of motherhood and mountaineering in Britain and North America in the late twentieth century” very interesting and also a source of debate, for a couple of reasons. To begin my…
Reading Response, Week 4
Fallen Giants
by mel •
The discussion for this class has centered much around the cause behind mountaineering, the draw to the sport, and what attracts mountaineers to the thrill of the dangerous endeavor. Fallen Giants, while dense and packed with great historical detail, contains insight into the question of why mountaineering is loved by many despite its danger. Isserman…
Reading Response, Week 3
Mountains of the Mind
by mel •
Finding just one aspect from Robert Macfarlane’s writings is difficult, so being from Minnesota and coming to Montana, I focused much during the book on the draw to the mountains and what Macfarlane has to say about it. In relation to last week’s discussion on the draw to mountaineering despite its obvious danger and lack…
Reading Response, Week 2
Mount Analogue
by mel •
Mount Analogue is full of imagery that paints a picture of mountaineering and mountains that gives the reader analogy after analogy to place an image of mountaineering seen through eyes of various professions in the world, rather than the usual mountaineer, that contributes his/her life to the practice. Beginning with the end of the novel…