North Face

We finished the movie "North Face" today in German class.

It was about a group of climbers attempting to be the first people to scale the north face of the Eiger (a mountain in the Bernese Alps).

I guess I thought, after all the struggle, after all the frostbite and avalanches, that there would be at least a small happy ending.

But, without giving too much away, I have to tell you that there isn't.

That's what happens when you make movies based off of real life; things don't always end well.

Sometimes people die.

I walked back from class feeling sad, and I am still feeling sad. And I don't think it's because people died, exactly. It's because they tried so hard not to die, but they did anyway. The ogre that the mountain is named after managed to eat them up while they were still attached to their ropes, while they still clutched rocks.

I sat in my German class today, staring at a movie projected on a shiny whiteboard and wondered why in the world anyone would ever try to climb a mountain. People die on mountains. And not just throughout history. Not just back in the day. People die on mountains now, despite technology and despite global warming. Why would anyone risk that? Why would anyone risk their life to stand on the top of a gigantic mound of rock for a few seconds (because of course any longer and you suffocate for lack of oxygen)? I think I need someone to explain this to me sometime. I also think that maybe deep down I know the reason, but I just don't understand it. I sit on my bed and read books about mountains and I feel no desire to climb one. And I don't think that limits me. I don't feel any desire to fight against the elements. My battles are mainly mental, which is all right too.

Sometimes people die on mountains, and sometimes people die peacefully in their beds. But I wouldn't say that mountaineers have necessarily had any greater of a journey than those who die in bed. Maybe higher journeys, though.

"When you're at the bottom - Toni once told me - at the foot of the wall, and you look up, you ask yourself: How can anyone climb that? Why would anyone even want to? But hours later when you're at the top looking down, you've forgotten everything. Except the one person you promised you would come back to." -North Face (2008)