Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Freedom of the hills?

Aiguille de la Tsa, September 2011

"Mountain is mountain, and city is city," our club's president used to say. This koan meant that, while the city dweller's life is minutely regulated, mountaineers take responsiblity for themselves. But what happens to mountaineering when well-intentioned authorities start setting rules in the name of safety? The philosopher/boulderer Francis Sanzaro weighed the consequences in a required-reading op-ed in last Sunday's New York Times:

Keep our mountains free. And dangerous.

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