Mountain

Until at last it succumbed. 61 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:48,080 This was the moment that mountaineering as adventure entered the popular imagination. 62 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:54,640 Our fascination became an obsession. 63 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:13,560 Now our need for mountains runs deep and wide. 64 00:22:19,020 --> 00:22:27,820 For most of us exist for most of the time in environments that are humanly arranged and controlled. 65 00:22:58,820 --> 00:23:02,640 But mountains are wild and ungovernable. 66 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:07,330 This is the source of their danger 67 00:23:07,340 --> 00:23:10,100 And also the source of their allure. 68 00:23:18,180 --> 00:23:23,380 And so a longing for the unknown that cans us onwards 69 00:23:26,600 --> 00:23:28,120 Like echos cave 70 00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:34,000 The unknown will answer back with whatever you call into it. 71 00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,680 To travel to the high peaks is to cross a threshold 72 00:25:41,700 --> 00:25:45,880 Into a space where time warps... And bends. 73 00:25:47,500 --> 00:25:51,040 And sensations are thrillingly amplified. 74 00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:03,080 Stone and ice though are far less gentle to the hand's touch than to the mind's eye. 75 00:28:13,580 --> 00:28:18,780 The mountains of the Earth have often turned out to be more resistant, 76 00:28:18,780 --> 00:28:20,780 More fatally real 77 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:24,440 Than the mountains we imagine. 78 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:41,140 These are matters of hard sharp rock and driving ice. 79 00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,500 A bone deep cold. 80 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:08,540 Nothing ideal. 81 00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,180 Injury and nausea. 82 00:29:23,620 --> 00:29:25,500 Fizzing fear. 83 00:29:35,500 --> 00:29:38,180 Of stomach turning vertigo. 84 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:46,020 But... They're also places of unspeakable beauty. 85 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,300 And so the peaks summon us still. 86 00:31:08,360 --> 00:31:11,260 Sharpening our sense of being. 87 00:31:13,060 --> 00:31:15,560 Setting life on a knife edge. 88 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,020 For danger can hold terrible joys. 89 00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,680 Dreadful splendors. 90 00:32:16,780 --> 00:32:23,100 Today mountains are considered among nature's most exquisite features. 91 00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:29,960 No longer due to their chaotic forms upsetting the spirit level of our minds. 92 00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:17,720 Now we migrate to them in our millions each year pursuing our strange pilgrimages. 93 00:33:43,140 --> 00:33:47,260 A very modern mountain worship has taken hold. 94 00:35:56,740 --> 00:36:01,900 A worship that requires the modification of the mountains. 95 00:36:11,420 --> 00:36:14,700 And the management of their risks. 96 00:36:59,300 --> 00:37:00,880 And in doing so 97 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:07,540 We have come to forget something of their power. 98 00:37:21,220 --> 00:37:24,240 What odd devotions we undertake. 99 00:37:25,020 --> 00:37:28,260 What curious performances we put on. 100 00:37:28,260 --> 00:37:31,220 With the mountains as our theater. 101 00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:19,800 To certain people the call to adventure is irresistible. 102 00:40:21,060 --> 00:40:26,480 As everyday life has become safer and more comfortable for some. 103 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:30,280 We've begun to seek out danger elsewhere. 104 00:40:43,700 --> 00:40:45,200 We court danger. 105 00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:50,740 We pay for it. 106 00:41:07,060 --> 00:41:10,560 Risk has become its own reward. 107 00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:28,460 At height you can be taken right to the brink. 108 00:41:33,340 --> 00:41:40,120 For you never feel so alive knowing that at any minute... You could die. 109 00:43:01,020 --> 00:43:06,320 So up to the mountains we go in headlong pursuit of peril. 110 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:16,440 Or a testing ground on which the self can best be illuminated. 111 00:43:42,740 --> 00:43:50,020