Alpinist Willi Unsoeld was a great mountaineer, best known for being among the first Americans to summit Mount Everest and also for the tragic story of losing his daughter, Nanda Devi, on her namesake mountain.  He was also a professor or religion and philosophy (but I’ve heard different explanations of what he actually taught.) 

Here is one quote from Unsoeld that struck a cord with me about hiking and climbing.  I always had this thought whenever I was going back and forth to the Adirondacks in high school and in college.  I think it may be even more resonating now:

” …Why not stay out there in the wilderness the rest of your days? Because that’s not where men are. The final test for me of the legitimacy of the experience is ‘How well does your experience of the sacred in nature enable you to cope more effectively with the problems of mankind when you come back to the city?'”

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