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Impossible Things

Dawn Wall free in a day. There, I thought it, said it, wrote it. Someday it’s sure to happen, yes?

Séb Berthe agrees…. Saying, speaking, believing—these all make a thing that much closer to reality. Or, potentially, they only lead one deeper into rabbit holes of delusion. Fanciful, futuristic things are generally assumed to be delusion until they are made real by alchemists—people who maybe have to be at least a little bit mad to believe such possibilities in the first place.

Climbers constantly test themselves against delusion.

1984: Sarah’s Summit

At age thirteen, Sarah Doherty lost her right leg to a drunk driver, but the accident didn’t stop her from pursuing athletics. She became the first female amputee to reach the summit of Mt. Rainier in 1984.

1792-Present: Deconstructing Rainier. Reconstructing Takhoma.

I wanted to share these ideas because I am the Native American mountain guide who was (is) obsessed with peak-bagging and deconstructing his colonial mindset while also reconstructing a stolen Indigenous identity. The catalyst for this revolution was Takhoma, a cultural centerpiece for many tribes and a nexus of energy, one that budding mountaineers have coveted for nearly a century and a half.

1988-1995: The Training and the Test

The mountain’s changing conditions, technical terrain and unpredictable weather make it a far more serious objective than the Lower 48’s other “Fourteeners.” It’s no wonder Mt. Rainier has been an invaluable training ground for generations of mountaineers who plan to climb higher and harder.

Climbers like Ed Viesturs, the first American to climb all fourteen 8000-meter peaks, climbed extensively on Mt. Rainier. The mountain played an important role in the early careers of other famous alpinists such as Mark Twight, Conrad Anker, Willie Benegas, Melissa Arnot Reid, Willi Unsoeld, Lou and Jim Whittaker and countless others over the years. For me, Mt. Rainier was both the training and the test…. My most memorable, and indeed most life-changing, ascent of Mt. Rainier was my third, which, I’m embarrassed to admit, is also a survival story.

The Green Man

After being involved in an avalanche that killed a beloved member of her community in Colorado’s Elk Range in 2020, Laura Yale begins a journey to untangle a web of grief. She explores the ways ancient cultures coped with the reality of loss, acknowledging the natural process of death, and brings the old wisdom to bear on her situation. The Green Man “is in the knowing that in the whites and greys and long nights of winter, green will one day emerge again,” she writes.

Hard to Explain

In honor of Veterans Day, we’re sharing this story from Alpinist 87—which is currently available on newsstands and in our online store. In this short fiction story, Ben Davis depicts a mostly silent conversation between military veterans as they make their way up the east face of Longs Peak (Neniisoteyou’u, 14,255′).

Echoes through the Ages

In this Sharp End story from Alpinist 86, Derek Franz contemplates the future and finds hope. He writes: “While digging through the Alpinist archive for research related to this issue, I happened upon articles whose words resonated not only with my current situation but with what today’s writers continue to express in different ways. They are reminders that we are not alone, that others have come before and survived whatever we find ourselves facing today. They emphasize greater truths that remain consistent despite all the upheaval we continue to witness in this modern age of technology, climate change and global conflict…. Rereading those stories by different people from different times and places, I noticed a more ancient story begin to emerge, as though one voice were speaking through multiple people across generations.”