It sounds like vroom to my ears, and I am not even talking about cars. I am talking about “Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival”, VIMFF, which starts tomorrow. Greg Child has been constantly saying this about VIMFF:

“The Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival is a fine festival of climbing and adventure programs that remain true to the heart of climbing. Held in the city that is the gateway to Squamish, Whistler and the Coast Range, it is a fine and relaxed gathering of sport climbers, alpinists and mountain wanderers ”.

Tomorrow is the day numero uno, and we wanna be in North Vancouver to see and to hear what Jeff Lowe has to say this time.

”Takva” is asceticism. It’s an arabic word which means ‘a man’s fear of something/ someone bigger than himself’. We have been discussing ‘fear’, ‘hope’ and ‘mountains’ in recent weeks. Last night we even saw a movie by Özer Kiziltan with the same title as todays blog, namely “A man’s fear of God”. It’s a movie about fear, and it’s about Muharrem who is a self- disciplined man who lives a solitary life of an ascetin within a modern society. His life is only about devotion to God, but it is going to change when Sheik offers him a job as a rent collector for dervishes’ properties. Nice photography, otherwise really predictive plot. After the movie, we talked about fear and hope and risk, and how those are the fundamental rhythm of mountaineering. G. has been reading ‘Mountains of mind’ for some days now, and he could tell me that Robert MacFarlane, the writer of this book, is getting old (in my opinion), ’cause Robert MacFarlane believes in security rather than risk. Read the excerpts below, and tell me that I exaggerated.

quote of the day (from ‘Mountains of mind’):

 

It’s easy to sentimentalize or glorify the climbing dead. But what should be remembered – what’s often forgotten- are the people left behind. All those parents, children, husbands, wives and partners who have lost their loved ones to the mountains. All those ruined lives which have to be completed. People who regularly take big risks in the mountains must be considered either profoundly selfish or incapable of sympathy for those who love them.

(page 98)

 

I now almost fully acknowledge that there is nothing inherently noble about dying in the mountains: indeed that there is something atrociously wasteful about it. I have largely stopped takings risks. I rarely undertake climbs which require the security of ropes. I have discovered that it is eminently possible to spend time in the mountains and to be at far less risk than one would be, say, crossing city streets. I’m scared more easily, too: my fear threshold has been sharply lowered. That fizzing, nauseous, faintly erotic feeling of real terror grips me more quickly these days. Edges that five years ago I would happily have walked along, I know keep my distance from. For me now, as for the vast majority of mountain – goers, the attraction of mountains is far more about beauty than about risk, far more about joy than fear, far more about wonder than pain, and far more about life than death.

(page 99).

… never summited Mt. Prenj!

*I wish Rolf Jacobsen went to see Prenj. Goran did in summer 07.

I promised myself yesterday that I would write more on this blog and read more about mountain climbing. Messner is still energizing me, only this time with Mt. Everest and ‘Expedition to the ultimate’. I am at the same time trying to finish an article about Mt. Prenj. To pick up some inspiration, I went back to Rolf Jacobsen and his poem ‘More Mountains’:

Here and there

something must endure,

or soon we’ll surely lose our wits,

things have got us whirling around so fast.

Large trees are fine

and really old houses are fine,

but even better -

mountains.

Which won’t budge an inch

even if the whole world is changed

(as it soon must be);

they’ll stand there

and stand and stand

so you can lay your forehead against something,

and cool yourself

and hold onto something solid.

I like mountains.

They make horizons

with big notches,

as if they were forged by smiths.

Think of it: - That old round - top has sood as it stand now

all the time since King Harald’s day.

It stood here when they nailed a poor wretch to the cross.

As it stands now. As it stands now.

Wearing trickling streams and heather scrub and that large

steep broz

without any thoughts in it. It stood here

through Belsen and Hiroshima. It stands here now

as a landmark for your death, your unease,

perhaps your hopes.

So you can go over there and hold onto something hard.

Some old something. Like the stars.

And cool your forehead on it,

and think your thoughts through.

And think for yourself.

I really believe in Bob’s quote ‘my feet is my only carriage’. If I asked Reinhold Messner about mountaineering gear, he would probably answered: tent, poles, ice axe, some food, feet and huge will to summit. He was the first man to solo Mt. Everest without oxygen, and the first to summit all fourteen Himalayan peaks higher than 8000 metres. He lost his seven toes and his brother Gunhter descending Nanga Parbat in 1970. I heard about this weirdo and his lifestyle just few months ago. Weird that no one told me about him earlier. He is just as much extraordinary as Lars Monsen or Arne Næss. I started to read Messner’s book ‘The Crystal Horizon’ yesterday, and today I feel like climbing ‘never rest’ in 2013. I sat in Calabria earlier today, and when G. came back from Spartacus , I said to him that I am climbing first Chimborazo and Ama Dablam , and then I’ll be ready to visit Himalaya, Tibet and Shekar Monastery. Anyway, Messner has an exceptional literary voice especially when he is writing about restlessness and oneness in our mad - materialistic world. ‘The crystal horizon’ needs to be read.