He notes the awe of a cliff not just for size, but for the knowledge that he once struggled many hours to cross a cliff of that size, and looks to the far away peaks with reverence rather than just amazement of appreciation of beauty as would tourists. He frequently brings up that only mountaineers know the true size of mountains because feet and meters only measure distance, whereas climbers measure mountains in exertion and hours it takes to summit, which gives a person specific measurement in context. Stephen surprises readers who expect the picturesque pristine nature scene in the alps with a description of what it’s really like at the base—“sandwich papers and empty bottles and peasant women singing Stand Er Auf” (Stephen, 222), but that still as a mountaineer he looks at the alps in awe at the “imperishable majesty” (Stephen, 222) because of the memory of scrambling in rock and snow to
He notes the awe of a cliff not just for size, but for the knowledge that he once struggled many hours to cross a cliff of that size, and looks to the far away peaks with reverence rather than just amazement of appreciation of beauty as would tourists. He frequently brings up that only mountaineers know the true size of mountains because feet and meters only measure distance, whereas climbers measure mountains in exertion and hours it takes to summit, which gives a person specific measurement in context. Stephen surprises readers who expect the picturesque pristine nature scene in the alps with a description of what it’s really like at the base—“sandwich papers and empty bottles and peasant women singing Stand Er Auf” (Stephen, 222), but that still as a mountaineer he looks at the alps in awe at the “imperishable majesty” (Stephen, 222) because of the memory of scrambling in rock and snow to