[This Sharp End story originally appeared in Alpinist 91 (Autumn 2025), which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up the hard copies of Alpinist for all the goodness!–Ed.]
History repeats itself.
By coincidence, the magazine you now hold in your hands is uncannily similar to Issue 54 (2016) in terms of the themes, places and people that are featured—something I didn’t notice until we started fact-checking the stories. In that edition, Hayden Kennedy and Marko Prezelj both celebrate and deride the matter of “storytelling.”
“As Marko would say, The essence of the climb is lost just as soon as the storytelling begins,” Kennedy writes in his story “Light Before Wisdom.”
Near the end, he continues, “The art of storytelling can get lost in the obsession with self-promotion, the endless babblings … that fill social media feeds and clutter our brains. Yet as Marko would say, ‘When seeing and experiencing become one, the window to true sight is open.’ At such instances, just as conscious thoughts fall away, there’s the chance we might glimpse something beyond words or images: a fragment of pure existence, an echo of the mountain’s own chords.… Maybe one reason to try to tell our tales at all is to bring some of that vision back to our everyday lives.”
Several pages later, in a separate story titled “Event Horizon,” Prezelj presents his thoughts as a two-sided conversation with himself. He begins: “Every fleeting moment is a choice. It begins and ends in our heads: we decide where to look, how to react and how to capture this illusion of reality. We create a fiction.” Later, he concludes: “You don’t take a photo. You borrow it from time with your heart and mind.… Authentic beauty is in the making.”
Context gives depth to the perspective. Or negates it.
As editor-in-chief of this magazine, I’ve made my career as a storyteller, so I feel an added responsibility toward these ideals and more.
Storytelling is at its highest form when done in service to the bigger picture that goes beyond one person’s benefit; when the threads intertwine and connect, creating a fabric, a mosaic, a song, an ongoing conversation. At their best, stories are how we understand who we are, where we come from, where we are now, what we value or despise and where we might be going. At their worst, stories are lies we recite to ourselves and others—to hide unpleasant truths, elevate ourselves and bring others down.
Nature is the original storyteller, speaking in languages we are only beginning to understand more precisely with our conscious minds (or that, in some cases, we willfully forget). These stories are told through the cyclical patterns of gravity, inertia, shifting landmasses, chemical reactions, weather, biological evolution and extinctions, etc. They have been scientifically demonstrated with repeatable experiments through generations, offering clues to what we are likely to face in the future. Still, there are minds who dismiss any and all of it, out of willfulness, ignorance or both.
Recorded human history, on the other hand, is more easily dismissed as fraudulent. Broad, recurring patterns remain, begging us to take heed. History has observed the rise and fall of empires, and the ways in which people have been cajoled and coerced to commit atrocities against each other and even the environment that we rely on to survive.
“Just focus on climbing and leave politics out of it!” has been echoed by Alpinist critics for the past many years. (These critics, as far as I’ve seen, are invariably white men, some young, some old.) They would prefer that a magazine like Alpinist ignore the social and environmental context in which climbing takes place and just focus on the ropes ’n’ stuff. But doesn’t a story reduced to the act of climbing quickly become boring and repetitive?
Context gives depth to the perspective. Or negates it.
For example, while fact-checking the title of a painting made by Hitler that is mentioned in this issue’s Full Value essay, I found what appears to be a thriving seller of Nazi memorabilia on a popular online shopping site. Most chilling is that the coffee mugs and T-shirts include crossover designs touting American nationalism. The demons of the past are not dead and buried as deeply as many of us wish to believe. Does this information give more weight to the conclusions Christopher Elliott draws at the end of his essay? I think so.
As an editor, I must constantly decide where to direct people’s attention—assuming I can win it in the first place—and choose how to present a narrative within the available space. There are always many details that must be left out, like a photograph that can only capture so much within the scope of the lens. If we want to know the whole story, the bigger picture, we must constantly seek different viewpoints. While some facts may remain fixed, the way we see them may shift like the shadow on a sundial, or perhaps the sparkling mirrors of a kaleidoscope.
It’s easy to get lost when we lose faith in the integrity of the storytelling, so there’s an added responsibility for people like me who identify as journalists.
By the time most of you are reading this, I will be in Nepal on an all-expenses-paid media trip with The North Face. It is an opportunity—which I view as a scholarship toward higher education—to visit a country that I’ve been learning about since third grade. A country that has featured in so many of the stories I’ve written and edited over the years. Now I get to experience Nepal and its people firsthand; I get to learn directly from the professionals: how to train for high altitude, how to pack and travel, how to utilize the latest clothing and equipment, etc. When I decided to pursue journalism in college in tandem with my devotion to all things climbing, my dream was that I would one day be paid to go on expeditions such as this. The dream is coming true!
For those interested to follow along, I will be keeping a blog on Alpinist.com and sharing posts on social media (as well as opportunities allow) during the two-week trek, which will include a visit to Everest Base Camp and hopefully an ascent of Lobuche East (6119m).
No doubt there will be critics who cry, “Sellout!” To them, I say, “What would you have me do, decline the opportunity to gain experience and knowledge that will ultimately benefit this magazine?”
Short of depriving myself of an experience I might otherwise never have, all I can do is give honest disclosure and stay vigilant to avoid getting lost in self-promoting babble. I intend to be mindful of where I look, so that, with a bit of luck, I might be able to share some vision of “true sight”—a fragment of pure existence, an echo of the mountains’ chords.
Postscript
As of September 16, I have just received word that my trip to Nepal is being postponed. Peaceful protests that turned violent in Kathmandu about a week ago resulted in my airline canceling its flights into the country from Hong Kong through the end of the month. For the past several days I’ve been sitting in an ice bath of anticipation awaiting a decision from my expedition leaders if the trip was still a go, with my first flight set to depart early tomorrow morning. While I’m disappointed to have plans fall apart at the gate after months of training and preparation, I’m relieved to no longer be held in suspense. I have a whole new appreciation for what troops must experience when they are on standby for deployment. We’ll see what’s to come.
Regarding the civil unrest, according to today’s article in the Himalayan Times, “137 government buildings and private houses were set on fire or vandalized during the demonstrations, and 664 vehicles were destroyed in acts of arson.” Not mentioned in that story are the many deaths that have occurred. A September 13 New York Times story describes “charred skeletons” that are “being discovered everyday” after a peaceful protest against government corruption and a ban on social media turned violent; security forces opened fire and killed protestors while people who may not have been associated with the original protest started looting and setting buildings ablaze. According to the Himalayan Times, the violence has settled and the cleanup has begun; business is returning to normal and the the prohibition on social media has been withdrawn.