Читать книгу Higher Love - Kit DesLauriers - Страница 8

by Conrad Anker

Adventure and exploration are at the heart of the human experience. When we first wandered the globe in search of who and what we are, a hunger for exploration was at the core of our search. What was over the next horizon? What lay across the sea? What would we see from the top of the mountain? Of course, inherent in these explorations was adventure, that happy, soul-enriching, life-affirming offshoot of risk, and soon we were setting out for the unknown to find adventure for its own sake.

But the days of walking off the map are long over. Technology has allowed us to chart the planet with annoying accuracy. With your computer, you can pinpoint your neighbor’s lawn sculpture as easily as you can find the headwaters of the Nile. In our overcrowded and overtaxed world, with pretty much every geographical feature mapped, named, and assessed for value, we naturally wonder if we can still find adventure and exploration in the twenty-first century. Even in the mountains, is there anything left to discover?

Long before people started climbing mountains, we were shaped by their presence. Mountains define land. Their immensity, formed by shifting plates driven from the core of the planet, creates barriers. Barriers that shape weather, barriers that intimidate people. We fear mountains. The power unleashed by high-country storms and avalanches is the foundation for the many demons and dragons that filled the primitive mind. And water, too, finds its origin in mountains. The essential life force that connects humankind to the spiritual, the river where pilgrims place a drop of water in a newborn’s mouth and bring the ashes of loved ones in hopes of auspicious future incarnations.

As a place of renewal and rebirth, mountains have a unique place in the human psyche. Most of the world’s religions have a connection to the higher places. Mountains are central to the tenets of Christianity and Buddhism, not to mention the foundation of Greek mythology. The Native American beliefs hold mountains to be sacred, places where there is enlightenment through hardship.

Perhaps it’s the connectedness to something timeless and more powerful than mere human existence that draws us to the mountains. They seem so mighty and permanent. They catch the first and last rays of sun, seemingly mystical in the hidden folds of verticality. In the time span of humans, they dwarf us and remind us of our insignificance, yet in the bigger geologic time frame, they are eroding ever so slowly back into the sea. From both perspectives, they’re a reminder of life’s impermanence.

But despite all this, the fact remains: The mountains have all been charted. So how do we find adventure and exploration in these times when there are no more blank spots on the map? We do it the same way we’ve always done it—by setting out for the unknown, someplace we don’t know. The only difference now is that we search for these places within. The demons of doubt and the dragons of uncertainty still dwell within us, and it’s in this internal landscape that the elemental human pursuit of adventure plays out. We can discover the unknown today. We simply need to locate the blank spots on our own maps and explore them.

In Higher Love, Kit shows us her own version of exploration. We’re immediately swept into the story with her tale of adopting a wolf—the beginning of one adventure—and then we’re plunged into another, her Seven Summits quest. To climb the highest mountain on each continent is a feat unto itself, but to ski them adds a whole other level of complexity and risk. A level that few dare to attain.

Society has placed a glass ceiling on what women can or should be expected to do. For example, climbing mountains is perceived as a masculine activity, yet it has its share of heroines like Kit who break through that perception. As we’re taken through Kit’s transformation from a competitive skier to a ski mountaineer, she provides us with reasons not to be held back by the labels society has assigned us. And while being a strong-willed woman is often perceived as intimidating, Kit shows us the other side of feminine determination. The grace, balance, and poise that come from unwavering commitment to a goal.

This is how to find adventure and exploration in the twenty-first century.