Juli Roffman

“Think of it as a blind date. All you initially have
in common at the bottom is the reason you’re there, the top of the mountain.”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“But maybe, I thought, the price of climbing Everest is now being calculated in a different way. More and more people, it seems, are willing to pay a cash price for the opportunity, but not a physical price for preparedness: the gradual development of body and spirit as you climb lower-level peaks, moving from the simple to the complex and finally to the 8,000ers. Isn’t there accomplishment to be felt in such a process, I wondered, or has high-altitude climbing forever been changed by the use of oxygen, advances in technologies, and the proliferation of services that allow the marginally prepared to climb higher and higher?”
― Anatoli Boukreev, The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest

“I don’t fear death. It’s how I have always been. I fear losing the people I love, but death itself, my own death, leaves a blank spot in my mind.”
― Tommy Caldwell, The Push: A Climber's Journey of Endurance, Risk, and Going Beyond Limits

“But there are times — my favorite climbs — when it doesn’t feel as if I’m climbing. Instead, the cliff or tree or wall seems to be lifting me, higher and higher.”
― David Kudler, Bright Eyes: A Kunoichi Tale