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Nature and Reflections

• November 2010
• Hi Steph Climb Travel

Hi Steph,
My name’s Emily, I’m 21 and from Minnesota. I study music at concordia college in Moorhead MN, which is near Fargo ND. I got into climbing this summer as I did a lot of hiking in RMNP and climbed the North Face of Longs with Jim Detterline and a few others. I was told to watch your free solo diamond video and found that fascinating. Basically I just wanted to say “hi”. I read some of the excerpts from your book and found them interesting and I’m curious to know more about some of your self-reflections and what you’ve realized about climbing. Now that I am back in MN and far from mountains, I find myself thinking about nature a lot and also about my experiences in the park and trying to find out what it all means to me.

Anyway, hope you’re doing well,
Emily

Dear Emily,
Thanks for writing to me! I’m glad you had some time in the park this summer. I am working on writing another book right now, about this exact thing. I’ve been climbing for twenty years now, and it has always made me feel close to nature and close to my own nature. I’ve found that climbing experiences mean different things at different times, and reflecting on them does teach you a lot about yourself and your place in the world, in time and in relation to others as well as yourself. Funny enough, I wrote a master’s thesis about climbing experiences on the Longs Peak Diamond, and the nature of reality in mountaineering literature….my conclusion being (from my own experiences and from reading about others) that each person’s experience and perception of an event is completely unique to oneself, even if it has been shared with another person. Which is really quite astonishing, when you consider that we are often taught that there is a single “reality” and all conclusions and actions stem from that. So this really defines my perception of reality, as something that is very personal and subjective, and which can never be determined to be universal at all. Which obviously affects my feelings about everything in life, from writing to social matters.

Reflecting on your experiences in wild places and the emotions and thoughts they leave you with can be very enlightening, I think. For sure, spending time in wild places will always remind you that in the great scheme of nature, the universe, and geologic time, you are just the tiniest smidge of all the other energies at play. And I think this is really good for people to remember.
🙂 Steph