And these mountains which thine eyes have seen,
The mountain of iron, and the mountain of copper, and the mountain of silver,
And the mountain of gold, and the mountain of soft metal, and the mountain of lead,
All these shall be in the presence of the Elect One
As wax: before the fire,
And like the water which streams down from above [upon those mountains],
And they shall become powerless before his feet. Enoch 2:52:6
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour. Albert Camus
Great things are done when Men & Mountains meet
This is not Done by Jostling in the Street. William Blake, Great Things Are Done
He who first met the Highlands’ swelling blue
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend’s familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his mind’s embrace. Lord Byron, The Island II:12
Above me are the Alps,
The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls
Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche – the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
More mountains; bluish beauties never attainable, or ever turning into inhabited hill after hill; south-eastern ranges, altitudinal features as alps go; heart- and sky-piercing snow-veined grey colossi of stone, relentless peaks appearing from nowhere at a turn of the highway; timbered enormities, with a system of neatly overlapping dark firs, interrupted in places by pale puffs of aspen; pink and lilac formations. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Unconventional homes in demanding locations … World’s Most Extraordinary Homes I: Mountain, BBC 2017
The Santa Monica mountains where one home owner built her dream home from the most unthinkable reused building material … built from the wings and tailfins of a disused 747. ibid.
Tucson mountain retreat: DUST architects … the walls are made from rammed earth. ibid.
Otago, New Zealand: ‘A series of spaces that are beautifully lit with fantastic atmospheres.’ ibid.
Swiss Alps: a holiday home perched on the side of a mountain. ibid.
‘I knew people died on mountains long before I had my accident … You like to think you control the odds.’ The Beckoning Silence, Channel 4 2007, Joe
The climber Joe Simpson was 25 when he had an accident that nearly killed him. He wrote a book Touching the Void about his extraordinary battle to survive. Now he’s going back to the mountain that first inspired him to climb to tell a story that has haunted him since he was a boy. ibid.
Of all the summits in the Alps, the Eiger is the mountain that is a legend among climbers. It has fascinated Joe Simpson for as long as he can remember. ibid.
A 6,000-foot vertical wall of rock and ice that is a place that never gets the sun. ibid.
More than 60 men have died on the north face of the Eiger. ibid.
In the far north-earth of Mexico is an ancient mountain world – Serranias del Burro. It’s home to an abundance of creatures. And the most surprising resident is the black bear. Mexico: Earth’s Festival of Life I: Mountain Worlds, BBC 2017
In 1963 an American expedition did something never before achieved – they filmed from the summit of Mount Everest. Narrated by Orson Welles, this film was the first time the world saw the view from its tallest mountain. But these cameras were also capturing something else: the final chapter in the conquest not only of Everest but all the Himalayas’ grand peaks. This was the epic era of mountaineering! An era when filmmakers helped turn mountaineering into a global struggle for prestige. Between the 1920s and the 1960s the highest mountains on Earth became symbols of status and achievement. Timeshift: Battle for the Himalayas, BBC 2017
Noel would help inspire the first expedition to climb it and film it. ibid.
Forget the pluck, this was propaganda. ibid.
Along with oxygen, the other fundamental advantage Pugh gave Hillary and Tenzing was equipment to melt large quantities of snow into water. ibid.
Mountains have a powerful effect on people. Mountains cloud your judgement. They heighten your emotions and intoxicate you. And in Renaissance times, the times we’re looking at, they intoxicated that especially disquieting Renaissance presence, Leonardo da Vinci. Waldemar Januszczak, The Renaissance Unchained IV: Hell, Snakes and Giants, BBC 2017
High above the clouds there are lost worlds: unexplored, unforgiving, wildly unpredictable, but here on the great mountain ranges of our planet life does exist. Against all odds a few extraordinary animals and remarkable people make their home in the highest places on Earth. Mountain: Life at the Extreme I: Rockies, BBC 2017
In the Rocky mountains you can sit all day and watch the world go by … As far as the eye can see it’s just wilderness. ibid.
The Rockies are the spine of north America … three thousand miles long. ibid.
Every year 700,000 acres go up in smoke. ibid.
Temperatures plummet to minus forty. ibid.
The mountain lion: secretive, silent and smart. ibid.
This grizzly bear has just come out of a five-month hibernation. ibid.
Time for school in the highest village in the Himalaya. But these pupils have no ordinary school run. For those who live in the Himalayas every day is extraordinary. This is the mountain range of the greatest extremes. The weather harsher. Mountains higher. Gorges deeper than anywhere else in the world. Mountain: Life at the Extreme II: Himalayas
A frozen forest. Hidden here is a remarkable animal rarely seen: the Yannan snub-nosed monkey. The highest living monkey in the world. They have no nose to get frost-bitten … To prevent freezing to death they must huddle together for warmth. ibid.
Snow leopard: mountain specialists. Thick fur to tackle to cold, enlarged lungs for the thin air and law paws … One of the rarest big cats in the world. ibid.
But the strangest creature of them all is the Tibetan hot-spring snake. The highest living snake in the world. Here on the Tibetan plateau there are thermal pools. ibid.
At 6,700 metres lives the highest animal in the world – the Himalayan jumping spider … He can jump fifty times his body length. ibid.
Soaring over the Andes mountains a South American condor: it’s on an endless search for food, covering 100 miles every day on wings that span three metres. Below, strange worlds appear: cloud forests, home to tens of thousands of species. Mountain: Life at the Extreme III: Andes
The Andes is our planet’s longest mountain range … stretching 5,000 miles. ibid.
The salt flat is the most hostile Andean world. Nothing grows here. ibid.
The Andes most elusive animal: spectacled bear. He can go five months without a sip of water. ibid.
There are over 200 active volcanoes spread across the Andes. More than anywhere else on Earth. ibid.
Avalanches are unstoppable forces of nature that kill hundreds of people every year. Even in Britain, around 30 people have lost their lives to avalanches since the year 2000. Yet we know surprisingly little about them. We can’t predict when or where they’ll strike. Horizon: Avalanche: Making a Deadly Snowstorm, BBC 2018
We desperately need to find new ways of predicting where avalanches will strike. ibid.
I feel like anybody could conceivably die on any given day. Solo makes it feel far more immediate and much more present. Free Solo, Alex Honnold, 2018
Free soloing is so dangerous that less than 1% of people who climb attempt it. ibid. CBS 60 Minutes documentary
I will always choose climbing over a lady. At least so far. ibid. Alex
El Capitan [Yosemite]: the centre of the rock-climbing universe. ibid. climber
On June 3 2017 Alex Honnold became the first person to free solo El Capitan. It took him three hours and fifty-six minutes. ibid. caption