Rannoch Mountaineering Club
www.climbrannoch.co.uk
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Rannoch Mountaineering Club
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Himalayan"Well, we knocked the bastard off !" — Edmund Hillary, on first climbing Mount Everest. "We reached the summit almost together." — Join press statement of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, 1953. "Wouldn't Mallory be pleased if he knew about this ?" — Edmund Hillary, while descending off Everest. "It's all bullshit on Everest these days." — Sir Edmund Hillary. "I'd let Depends sponsor me if it meant I could give Everest a go." — BenignVanilla. "I soon learned that Everest wasn't a private affair. It belonged to many men." — Thomas Hornbein. "Pissing through 6 inches of clothes with a 3 inch penis !" — Anonymous Everest summiteer when asked what was the hardest thing about climbing Mt Everest. "Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it."" — Edmund Hillary. "As far as I knew, he had never taken a photograph before, and the summit of Everest was hardly the place to show him how." — Edmund Hillary, referring to the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. "I had climbed my mountain, but I must still live my life." — Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. "Worship any mountain you like. But understand that the really popular holy mountains are going to get all the attention." — Anne in NYC. "If Everest is the cake, Trango is the topping." "The 1953 Everest expedition with Hillary led by Hunt had a mortar for the avalanches." "Because it is there." — George Mallory (1886-1924), answer to the question 'Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest ?'. "The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest ?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is no use'. "No one remembers who climbed Mount Everest the second time." — Na Nook. "Been there, done that." — Greg Child about Everest. "This is the fucking life, no ?" — Jean Afanassieff, first frenchman on Everest (on the summit of which he smoked a cigarette waiting for the others). "How is it Mac that you can climb so well, when you are so decadent ?" — A Russian climber to Ian McNaught-Davis who was smoking on the summit of Peak Communism. "You've climbed the highest mountain in the world. What's left ? It's all downhill from there. You've got to set your sights on something higher than Everest." — Willi Unsoeld. "I have not had to by lunch since." — Stephen Venables about how climbing Everest changed his life. "What we get from this is adventure and just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life." — George Leigh Mallory, Climbing Everest: A history. "Technique and ability alone do not get you to the top — it is the willpower that is the most important. This willpower you cannot buy with money or be given by others — it rises from your heart." — Junko Tabei after becoming the first woman to climb Everest in 1975. "Together we knew toil, joy and pain. My fervent wish is that the nine of us who were united in face of death should remain fraternally united through life." — Maurice Herzog, Annapurna 1950. "I told him of my concern about avalanche danger on the route but Peter was full of confidence. He had watched the face on many occasions, he told me, and had never seen an avalanche sweep down. I argued no longer. I too had never actually seen an avalanche falling down the face, although they must come down sometimes, I felt, judging from the debris at the bottom. I don't think there is anything very clever about killing yourself off, or even about having a fall and surviving." — Edmund Hillary, advising his son Peter on intended ascent of the West Face of Ama Dablam, which ended with an avalanche. "None of the books or photographs studied before leaving home had even slightly prepared me for such majesty. Truly this is something that does have to be seen to be believed, and that once seen must be continually yearned for when left behind, becoming as incurable a fever of the spirit as malaria is of the body." - Dervla Murphy — upon seeing the Himalaya. "It seemed as though our first view of the Himalaya was to be indefinitely postponed. Again the great cloud screen rose tall above the curve of the world. I was about to turn away disappointedly when a wild thought made me raise my head higher. They were there, an arctic continent of the heavens, far above the earth and its girdling clouds: divorced wholly from this planet. The idea of climbing over such delicate and distant tips, the very desire of it, never entered my heart or head. Had aI been born amoung or in sight of them, I might have been led to worship the infinite beauty they symbolized, but not to set boot on their flanks, or axe on a crest." — W. H. Murray upon seeing the Himalaya. "During the qualifying round I heard the contestant ahead of me introduced: 'Hardest redpoint: 5.14b, hardest on-sight: 5.13c' (Geoff Weigand). The contestant after me: 'Hardest redpoint: K2' (Greg Child)." — Andy Cairns. "We want clean expeditions more than we want clean-up expeditions." — Mr Shresta, Nepalese minister of Tourism. "Slug mode is when you lay in your tent with nothin' to do, maybe not ven a book to read, maybe not even nothin' to eat. I can do it pretty well." — Kitty Calhoun. Q: What's cold and black and lies at the bottom of the wastebasket ? "Each climber loses one finger or toe once in a while. This is a small but important reason for Polish climbers' success. Western climbers haven't lost as many fingers or toes." — Wanda Rutkiewicz. "He who dies with the most toes, wins." — Greg Mushial. "In Ukraine, we have enough climbers without fingers and toes — the only problem is to change bootsize." — Roman Coval. "Frostbite ? I consider that a failure." — Marc Twight. "I stared blankly at my fingertips. The ends were black and desiccated, hard to the touch." — Ed Webster, before losing fingers on Mt Everest. |
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