… let’s slip away from this damn masquerade
just take my hand and let me lead the way

Arne Næss:

“How can my so-called quality of life be kept or be heightened? And life quality is not about what you have, but how you feel you are and how that is, what makes us happy?”

PS:

Just call me an egoist, but I still think it’s extremely unfair that Arne Næss died. By the way, I can’t believe it’s already fifteen days since I wrote last post on Goridas blog. I do keep saying ’shame on you’ to myself because so many interesting things about  adventures and outdoors life happened during these weeks. Just visit Kraig for updates. His homepage keeps me always up to date. Concerning absence of blog, I have great excuses for our laziness these days ’cause I’ve been busy trying to find a job here in Prague and Goran has been extremely busy with his school. But the great news is that I found a job, and Goran made his first short movie: ‘Bench’. In other words: life is good, but we do miss autumn in Vancouver.

I am right now listening to the most mesmerizing song from Jose Gonzalez ever, called Cycling Trivialities, and I am thinking about how we ever become caught in the loop of existence. People become cycling trivialities and they are choosing not to live outside the patterns of triviality - based living. There are probably bilions of reasons for that, but I am not resolving the major issue if I am mentionin any of them. Anyways, there are still many people who refuse to live inside of the patterns. One of them is Chris Sharma, a professional rock climber. One of his dreams was to be first on Dreamcatcher (5.14d), a granite route on the Cacodemon boulder in Squamish: 

It’s really painful to think that Arne Næss, norwegian writer, ecophilosopher and mountaineer, died yesterday almost 97 years old. He was best known for launching the concept of deep ecology. He had a whole world in his hands. Goran and I were supposed to meet him in June this year regarding our project ‘cultural photopedal’. It’s not fair. RIP, Arne.

PS:  His favorite place in the world, where he felt most at home, was at his cabin Tvergastein, a three-hour walk uphill through the tundra from the train station at Ustaoset. He built this place in 1936. ”Tvergastein”  means “crossing the stones”, and here was Arne “six thousand feet above men and time”, as Nietszche once said.

PS 1: why did a life centered and always practical Arne inspired me:

“What do you want to be remembered for?” Arne: “I want to be remembered as a professor who said  a lot of stupid things to his students.”

“Only a mountain can get me that view with this fantastic horizon, and where you feel also powerful, at the same as you are very, very small, that is important philosophically. That the less you are in relation to the surroundings, the stars and the mountain, the more you intensely feel that you somehow symbolically get part of it. You get greater. You get on par with it. You get to feel good with it. So, the more tiny you are, the more in some sense you are together with something great and therefore, get something of that greatness.”

“In any case, from early infancy, climbing up is a positive experience: up stairs, up on chairs and tables, and with age, up on windows, roofs, trees, rocks. It is difficult to explain why some children dislike these activities unless it is through certain bad experiences or depressed moods. For me, it is difficult to understand why grown ups let such experiences go, and thus, with increasing routine, do not go on from trees to mountains. The question: “Why do you still climb?” should be countered by the question: “Why did you ever stop?”

“Climbing is not more dangerous than skiing. But unlike easy skiing in moderate surroundings, easy climbing on moderate precipices requires attention, like driving a car. You cannot turn around looking for a piece of chocolate on the back seat. You must turn the wheel at the proper moment and not confuse the brake with the gas pedal.”

First part of documentary about Arne Næss, “The Call of Mountain“:

… I ever saw <<

/…/ William C. Slingsby, the British father of Norwegian mountaineering said about Stetind: “The ugliest mountain I ever saw”. Perhaps this had something to do with his failure at achieveing the summit. Stetind was first ascended in 1910. /…/

The other day I was trying to put together an essay in norwegian about Gorans and mine trip to Needle Peak, when I got an email and a picture from friend of mine in Norway who was challenging us to climb norwegian’s Needle Peak, namely Mt. Stetind. On Wikipedia I’ve read that Arne Næss has climbed it. So I am thinking: if Arne Næss could do it, so can we.

Below you’ll find some pictures from our trip to Needle Peak.