MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING, or mountaineering, the practice of ascending to elevated points or peaks, is historically a quest for the challenges of new routes and peaks. Most often a group sport, mountain climbing requires teamwork and skill. Mountain climbing can be divided into three types with varying degrees of difficulty. Trail climbing or hiking is the least difficult type. More commonly associated with mountaineering are the more difficult practices of rock climbing and ice climbing. Although some rock climbers engage in the more dangerous form of free climbing, most use equipment that may include special shoes, ropes, and steel spikes (pitons) that are driven into the rock to assist the climber. Ice climbing, performed on the highest peaks, uses an ice axe and attachable boot spikes (crampons).

Early attempts to ascend mountain peaks were motivated by scientific, geographic, or spiritual quests, but mountain climbing evolved into a sport by the mid-eighteenth century. By that time, techniques for snow, ice, and rock climbing had developed, and an elite class of professional guides had become established. The Swiss Alps were especially popular with early climbers, but with the successful scaling of the Matterhorn in 1865, climbers began to seek other peaks, turning to the more distant Andes, Caucasus, North American Rockies, African peaks, and finally the Himalayas. In 1852, Mount Everest was determined the world's highest peak, but climbers did not successfully summit Everest until 1953, when the New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and the Sherpa Tenzing Norgay reached the top. The first American to ascend Everest was James Whittaker in 1963.

Mountain climbing became popular in the United States after World War II. American interest in wilderness exploration can be traced to the early eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, new ideologies about nature,

promoted especially by educated, upper-class East Coast nature lovers and bird watchers, began to develop. They extolled the virtues of wild areas as places to reflect and rejuvenate. This ideology was born of the intrinsic values and scientific curiosities of such places and a reaction to rapid urbanization and industrialization. Nature lovers celebrated the idea of the "noble savage" much as European Enlightenment thinkers had a century earlier.

During the Progressive Era, a "cult of wilderness" emerged, spearheaded by Theodore Roosevelt, that extolled the virtues of rigorous outdoor sports. The Sierra range was explored in the 1860s and 1870s, especially by the naturalist John Muir. Grand Teton, the highest peak in the Teton Range, was climbed in 1872. In Alaska, Mount Saint Elias was climbed in 1897, and Mount Blackburn and Mount McKinley were ascended in 1912 and 1913, respectively.

Between 1947 and 1970 advancements in technology, skill, and climbing routes made the sport accessible to greater numbers of people. By the end of the twentieth century, novice climbers, relying on equipment, technology, and guides rather than individual abilities, attempted dangerous peaks. The results were dramatic losses of life, such as the deaths of clients and experienced guides on Mount Everest in 1996.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air. New York: Villard, 1997.

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3d ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1982.

Reuther, David, and John Thorn, eds. The Armchair Mountaineer. New York: Scribner's, 1984.

DeirdreSheets

See alsoSports .

mountain climbing Sport and leisure activity that gained popularity in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. By the mid-1990s even the world's highest mountain, Everest, had been scaled by thousands of people – although the mountain continued to claim an average of three lives per year.