Let me guess, you use the *correct* amount of oxygen?
You get these high-powered people who want to climb Mount Everest...there is a Sherpa in the back pushing, carrying extra oxygen bottles so you can cheat the altitude. You haven't climbed Everest. The purpose of climbing something like that is to affect some kind of spiritual or physical change. When you compromise the process, you're an asshole when you start out and you're an asshole when you get back.
Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia
Why do I keep incessantly repeating “without oxygen”? Because climbing with modern oxygen systems is like dunking on a 6 to 8-foot rim. Sure, it counts for something, but it’s not exactly the same as a regulation hoop. First, there is the extremely large group of people, me included, who simply don’t have what it takes athletically to get up there. Second are the players who develop the ability on the practice court over time. I saw a few freakish 8th graders reach this level. But it’s an entirely different story to dunk in an NBA game. Now you’ve given up sole control of the situation and have a whole new set of variables to navigate. This season has been amazing in that I’ve had phenomenal teammates who stole the ball and passed it to me in the open backcourt of good weather. No between-the-legs antics for me: I puked five meters below the summit, then sluggishly executed a simple one-hander. But that’s right: I just fucking dunked in an NBA game.
Oxygen is ridiculously awesome. It’s the most immediatelyessential molecule we need to survive. Climbers who use oxygen think clearer,sleep better, eat better, climb faster, have warmer fingers and toes, and, tobe blunt, die a whole lot less. To put modern oxygen use into perspective, I’vebeen the strongest and most skilled member of my team on every commercial tripI’ve been on. When the other members switched to oxygen, I became the slowestand biggest liability.
But oxygen sanitizes the experience. It brings the mountain down to your level instead of ascending with integrity. It rewards the outcome (for lack of a better word, summit) over the process.
If there is such a thing as spiritual materialism it is displayed in a desire to possess the mountains rather than to unravel and accept their mysteries.
Voytek Kurtyka, The Art of Suffering
I recently learned that I have a (totally light-hearted) reputation in the Himalaya for “running away” from big mountains. For not getting to the top. In the world of commercial mountain tourism, I suppose I’d have a more filled-out resume if I were a 2x Everest summiteer, 2x K2 summiteer, and Lhotse summiteer. But what are we counting? Why? Would the other clients have credentials at all if they had to breathe that thin Mount Everest air for what it truly is? A high-end operator recently confessed to me that they've essentially eliminated the altitude factor on Everest! Other variables like health and weather may shut them down but that raw struggle at altitude was effectively offset by high oxygen flow rates. I worry that we’ve lost our collective creativity, self-expression and self-determination when we select our goals off company websites and view life as artifice.
For myself, I consider the use of supplemental oxygen by modern climbers to be cheating--not like blood doping or steroid use, but an unwillingness to climb the mountain on its own terms. If a climber isn't able to reach the top without supplemental oxygen, it would be better to climb a smaller mountain.
Steve Swenson
There’s an elegant solution to a lack of high peaks at your level: climb lower mountains! They’re incredibly beautiful, in many cases you’ll get a greater sense of adventure, they’re cheaper, the trip is shorter, and don’t think for a second there’s not enough challenge for you there. I’ll continue to pursue lower mountains out of their sheer majesty and solitude over the eerie, dreamlike trance of 8000-meter peaks.
There are a dozen reasons for climbing, some bad, and I've used most of them myself. The worst are fame and money. Commonly people cite exploration or discovery but that's rarely relevant in today's world. The only good reason to climb is to improve yourself.
Yvon Chouinard
But if that isn’t your taste, I have no hard feelings. I don’t make the rules. Mountains are a canvas for our personal expression. Short of environmentally trashing these spectacular places or exploiting local people, they are open to our interpretations and always should be. Mountains are my religion and I hope that you worship beneath whichever cathedral inspires you.
Humility and respect,
Hari Mix
