Mountains of the Mind: a History of a Fascination

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Robert Macfarlane is passionate about mountain-climbing, and appropriately enough begins his book on the subject describing how in childhood he became "sold on adventure". It meant the day would be a hot one; another good reason to have avoided a late start, for the warmth would loosen rocks that were gripped by ice, and cause crevasses to yawn in the glaciers. The imaginative potency of these greater peaks around the turn of the nineteenth century was formidable, and they frequently became objects of obsession within the minds of their individual admirers. Others are quite large, the sites on the Long Mynd, from the Bronze Age, include dykes, cross-ridge dykes and barrows.

Mountains of the Mind - Robert Macfarlane - Complete Review Mountains of the Mind - Robert Macfarlane - Complete Review

Our bursaries are there so everyone, no matter what challenges they have in their lives can find support and respite.No one knows for sure, but his disappearance and death, while better-documented than other legends revolving around the Lost Dutchman's gold mine, may have simply furthered the legend and put even more treasure seekers in danger. In the bright moonlight, I sat on one of the wide stone window-ledges and started to read The Fight for Everest.

Mountains for the Mind Mountains for the Mind

It is these very dangers, this alternation of hope and fear, the continual agitation kept alive by these sensations in his heart, which excite the huntsman, just as they animate the gambler, the warrior, the sailor and, even to a certain point, the naturalist among the Alps whose life resembles closely, in some respects, that of the chamois hunter. By the time he was off the mountain, Herzog's feet had turned black and brown; by the time they reached the safety of Gorakpur, Oudot had amputated almost all of his toes and fingers. Today, the emotions and attitudes which impelled the early mountaineers still prosper in the Western imagination: indeed if anything they are more unshiftably ensconced there. Thorne, but there was a doctor in New Mexico who told a similar tall tale, except he was kidnapped by the Navajo tribe in his story. During the desperate retreat down steep ground to Base Camp, he fell and smashed several bones in his already devastated feet.

I would wriggle as far down the bed as I could go, and hold the top sheet down over my head to create an airlock.