Masculinity

10 Reasons Why You Should Climb A Mountain

56 Comments

These days, opportunities for adventure and conquest are rare. That’s unfortunate, because masculine men naturally crave exploration. For us, the call of the wild is undeniable. But, let’s be realistic. Most guys aren’t gonna sell their stuff and live in the wilderness like filthy savages. A modern man can still test himself against nature’s wrath.

How?

Mountaineering.

Yes, mountain climbing. It’s one of the best ways for a man to plunge himself into a primal world of struggle and survival. Let’s explore the benefits.

1. Sculpts Your Body

A mountain expedition will put you in the best shape of your life. Ideally, you’d start training at 6-9 months before your climb. Having a clear reason to work out is a powerful motivator. Focusing your mind on your looming mission will keep you consistent. The training will likely put you in great shape. And then, there’s the climb. Your body will be consuming itself as the harsh conditions force you to burn to more calories than you can eat. You’ll be hard, strong, and incredibly ripped after a climb. Call it “the Mountaineering Cut.”

2. Introspection

mc1

Feeling low? Bored? Suicidal? Unmotivated? You may just need a reminder of your mortality. A controlled brush with death. Peering into the maw of an icy black abyss will make you see your life differently. You’re in real physical danger in the mountains. Facing that WILL make you appreciate your limited time.

3. Spiritual Growth

God stays in the mountains. If you’re a religious man, the intensity of your climb may cause spiritual revelations. Perhaps even epiphanies. Like Moses. If you’re not one of the Faithful? Well, you’ll still revel in nature’s glory. Because science.

4. Humility

The mountains make you humble. Despite your training and struggling, your goal may elude you. Contemplate your miniscule existence. Accept that you’re not a special snowflake. Just an insignificant speck of meaningless dust, floating along on an infinite white river of stars. And your clock is ticking.

5. Test Your Limits

mc2

Ascent will push you to the absolute limit. Mountaineering isn’t fun. Really, it’s the opposite. You’ll suffer as you face exhaustion, cold, snow, ice, altitude sickness, low oxygen, avalanche, falls, and countless other dangers. But your climb will harden you, physically AND mentally. It’s a true test of your ability to absorb and endure punishment.

6. Travel

If you’re like me, you don’t live near any serious mountains. But there are countless ranges located in exotic and beautiful places all over the planet. So now, you’ve got another good excuse to travel. So far, my climbs have taken me on multiple trips to California, Oregon, and Washington State.

7. Bonding With Brothers

Mountaineering isn’t a solo sport. Sure, whether you actually summit is up to you. But that doesn’t mean you climb alone. Ideally, you’ll have a crew of solid dudes with you. I have tight bonds with the three guys I’ve mountaineered with. Obviously, sharing life-threatening experiences forges strong ties.

8. Wilderness Survival

I’m not an expert on outdoor survival. But the mountains have shown me a few tricks. Just a few things you may experience firsthand:

  • Sleeping In Snow Dugouts
  • Enduring Altitude Sickness
  • Coping With Low Oxygen
  • Purifying Snow Into Water
  • Surviving White-Outs
  • Proper Crampon Use
  • Arresting Falls With An Ice Ax
  • Glissading

9. The Best Shower Of Your Life

mc3

Want to experience the greatest shower ever? Try days of grueling, non-stop physical activity without changing clothes or bathing. All while shitting in paper bags, and having run out of soap. That first shower back down in the flat lands will be amazing.

10. Tighten Your Inner Game

Ultimately, you climb for yourself. It’s got nothing to do with girls. But successful mountaineering WILL indirectly strengthen your inner game. It’ll skyrocket your confidence. No matter who you are, or what you’ve done. And it’s no secret that women like bold and adventurous men. Dominate a few mountains and you’ll have incredibly rich stories to tell. Great big bait.

Of course, there are downsides to scaling peaks. Mountaineering is clearly risky; you could be killed or suffer serious trauma. And unfortunately, the sport isn’t exactly cheap. But, survive a climb and you’ll feel like a beast. With big brass balls and steel bands for legs. If you’ve got the means and courage, then you owe yourself an epic mountain adventure.

Now, go climb!

Read More: The Thrill Of The Mountain Makes You A Man

56 thoughts on “10 Reasons Why You Should Climb A Mountain”

  1. “Everything else is just a game.”
    The bull fighting and motor racing promoters are going to want to have a chat with you.

    1. Motor racing is tough work, especially the endurance events ( 24 hr Le Mans, 12 hr Bathurst)

  2. “If I let you know where I am going, I won’t be on holiday”
    – Mission Impossible 2

  3. just take the chair lift and ski down, just as demanding and twice as fun….. i did one of the 10 most dangerous runs in the world the other day…. people die there every year….. i accidentally took the most crazy route, up to my knees in fresh powder on a 65 degree slope, with a 200ft cliff if i fell…… when i looked up from the bottom after finishing the run, i think i checked off a bucket list item, because i doubt i’ll be doing that ever again….. i don’t think i could now i’ve seen what i did….. i relive those moments in my mind, and if i’d known how crazy it was, i think i would have fallen…… ignorance is bliss….

    1. I can assure you that skiing is not as demanding as mountaineering. More fun, probably. Like the author said, mountaineering is not fun, it fucking sucks and destroys your body. I’m currently in a cast because I tore a tendon in my ankle on my last climb. Without a doubt, hiking any serious mountain is tenfold as demanding as taking a chairlift to a peak and riding down. Trust me, I climb and I snowboard.

      1. Above are a good list of non technical climbs.
        For any of you with a sense of history the. Owen Stanley ranges in New Guinea contain the Kokada Trail. You can walk it in about ten days if you train for a solid six months first. Hold you head very high after.
        Spare a thought for your Fathers and grand fathers (American and Australian
        Who did it with shitty World War One equipment. Very little food and bring shot at a lot of the time.
        Aspire to be that tough

    2. Damnit I thought they were gonna parachute off. Hell I would’ve. Climb down 600,000+ steps? Fuck that shit. lol

  5. I’ve always wanted to get into mountaineering but I have several questions.
    1. What’s the difference between the rock climbing like in the pictures and the men who climb Mount Everest or McKinley? Are they both considering mountaineering? I am more interested in the latter.
    2. How do you go about learning how to climb, in terms of the technicals?

    1. I think mountaineering simply refers to ascending/traversing mountains by any means. Top Roping entails climbing up a vertical rock face using ropes and various gear. I enjoy traditional hiking. I carry a backpack filled with various gear I will need along the trail (water filter, extra layers, food, etc.), and hike trails in the ADK High Peaks. It’s hard fucking work, so being in good cardiorespiratory shape is important. If you work out on a regular basis via any modality, you’ll most likely survive. I’ve climbed with people with a range of physical fitness, everyone makes it, although the weaker definitely get scared.

        1. There are 46 total peaks. They range quite a bit, many you have to hike miles into the wilderness before accessing the trailhead. I’ve hiked 9 peaks since I started in the summer of 2013, and my hikes averaged 2 peaks with 8 hours on trail. I haven’t done any overnight trips, so my hikes have been planned around being able to get in and out within the day. Usually I climb 2 peaks in a day, it takes about 8hrs. If you make 1.5mile/hour pace, you’re going pretty fast.
          By the way, the author says hiking is a group effort where you bond with your bros. I’ve done large group hikes with a school club, small group hikes with two close friends, and even completely solo hikes where I am on the mountain for 4 hours climbing in solitude – those are good hikes. Even while in groups, you don’t talk much to the people you are with. At the peak, you definitely have an underlying respect for the men you climbed with – a real sense of achievement. But there isn’t much conversation at all along the trail. With the large group hikes, I go as far as I can ahead of the group and get introspective – inner game. It’s a real drag to listen to people bitch the entire way up the mountain about how tired and hard the hike is. I prefer to cowboy up and work on mental toughness.
          I highly recommend the ADK High Peaks – they offer a lot in so many ways. Just get good footwear and don’t injure yourself like me.

        2. Thank you for the information. I need to look into this more, seems like a worthwhile endeavor

  6. Just to mention, you can climb mountains without top roping. The Adirondack High Peaks are all just hiking, basically walking up the mountain on trails. You can do it for the cost of gas money driving to the base. Most peaks don’t even charge for parking, and you can get away with doing two peaks for a full day’s hike, using minimal equipment and packing a lunch. They are definitely hard climbs though. These “walks in the park” are grueling.

    1. This is the style of climbing I do, though the rocky mountains are where I go, since they’re much closer to me than the Adirondacks. I’ve climbed about a dozen mountains in the 11,000 – 13,900 foot range and they were all generally the same (avoid 14,000+ mountains, they are so trendy they are packed with people). The first 90% is a long hike. The last 10% is bouldering – no rope gear required, you just need good trail shoes or boots and maybe an iceaxe if it’s snowy. I usually select a route where I’m up and back down to the car in 12 hrs or less because fuck hauling a tent and a stove all the way up a mountain.
      And I am always sore as hell the next day 😛
      One thing mountain climbing has taught me is to RESPECT THE FUCKING WEATHER. You need to keep an eye on it and learn to recognize its patterns so you can abandon the climb if there’s a thunderstorm/snowstorm passing through the area that could ruin your shit.

  7. I’ve climbed Mt St Helens (Washington). It is not a technical climb but it is wilderness and you have to get your butt up and back in one day.
    Mt Hood and Mt Rainer are also non-technical climbs substantially more challenging and the one day window remains. Death will stalk you on these two mountains.

    1. “Death will stalk you on these two mountains.”
      I appreciate your promotion of these climbs. I’m always grateful to get that bastard off my case, even if it’s just for a few hours.

    2. Rainier will be my first real mountain climb in less than a month. Should be fun

  8. I think it’s kind of cute how the author expects any pasty, out-of-shape, basement-dwelling reader to log of Counterstrike, let alone climb a fucking MOUNTAIN.
    Gotcha boys. Thx.
    -Desiree

    1. So when is the cardiac arrest due, are you and the beta husband excited?
      A big and beautiful feminist is an undisciplined failure. In denial of her inadequacy, she is typically supported by her orbiting desperado of a ‘man’ that loves her ‘just the way she is’ and never fantasises about hot women because he has ‘values’ and prefers a contrivance of a personality because that is a ‘real woman’. The fact she requires a blog to justify her thoughts and retaliatory ideas without so much as a semblance of intelligence is neither here nor there.
      Of course, when not appeased by a host of other desperate degenerates, she relies on feminism, a swiss-cheese agenda that is appropriated almost exclusively by emotional outrage that it can barely qualify as a movement let alone a cogent system of thought and belief, one designed almost entirely to pat women on the back and say ‘there, there it’ll be alright’.
      Adorable comment. Now if I ever do decide to scale the Matterhorn, I will take delight in knowing that a woman of your ilk couldn’t make it past the buffet cart at the base of the mountain without a rant about the patriarchy to warm the cockles of that butthurt interior that resides in every feminist.
      Take your best shot in response. I’m bulletproof.

        1. If a mere few paragraphs is beyond your attention span then I have some bad news.

    3. I’ve spent plenty of time in the mountains… of Afghanistan. Where in addition to the normal hazards of dangerous terrain I get to contend with the fucking TALIBAN. Perhaps your readership is out of shape but this site, not so much.
      Thx.

    4. Desiree’
      I may be easily amused but this picture/name combination made me laugh.
      Whoever made this account up brightened my day.

  10. I don’t know about mountain climbing.
    Men like Ueli Steck who are the elite, who free solo vertical ice walls and make record speed ascents of mountains like the Eiger, they are impressive. Men like Glenn Singleman and Nick Feteris who use their climbing skills to perform greater feats like base jumping from the worlds highest peaks (such as Trango Towers), they are impressive. The pioneers, the men who first summited the highest peaks, who first conquered the north faces of the alps, the men who opened up the remote and unforgiving peaks of Antarctica. They are impressive.
    But the average hobbyist climber, not so much. Even the highest and most revered mountain Everest, look at pictures of it, littered with tonnes of rubbish and dead bodies left behind by the rich European and Japanese who had a mid life crisis. I saw a video of even a woman reaching the top of Everest, breezing over deadly crevasses thanks to aluminum ladders put in place previously by men, They put themselves at great risk and destroy a beautiful mountain for bragging rights which literally hundreds of other people who are equally as rich have already got.
    I really don’t know. On one hand to conquer a mountain is an ages old feat of badassery, so perhaps I’m being a key board jockey, after all if you take up any other hobby such as a martial art it is not expected that you become a world champion for it to be worthwile, but on the other hand, everything in mountain climbing has been conquered so where can the satisfaction come from?

    2. try reading Flow the Psychology of Optimal Experience – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
      the point is to get into that state of mind where you are tested to the limit but still under control – that’s where happiness lies….. you could do it building a ship in a bottle from match sticks, or a house of cards – it just depends what turns you on….
      traditionally the physical challenges help keep the mind calm… all the exertion and blood to the muscles quietens the mind….

      1. Just torrented it I’ll have a browse tomorrow evening.
        I think your last line answers my question as to where the satisfaction comes from pretty well:
        “traditionally the physical challenges help keep the mind calm… all the exertion and blood to the muscles quietens the mind….”
        From that line alone it tells me, climbing is just something you need to try if you want to understand.

  11. Working on merchant ships, the lowest paid guys were the cook’s helpers, engine room Wipers and Ordinary Seamen, the unskilled labor force. The rest of us didn’t exactly look down on them so much as pity them, as most were older and uninterested in advancing their skills and pay rates. In my early days as an Ordinary, my Sea Daddy used to say that these were the men who would drown in a child’s pool, for fear of trying and failing to stand.
    I get the author’s point about mountain climbing. I don’t believe that you need to ascend a peak with an ice axe to experience the emotions he’s describing- simply giving 100% to a difficult climb, to endure and succeed, will do just fine. If you need an ice axe to exceed your own expectations, that’s what you have to do- a grueling climb that forces you to sublimate your own desire to quit and push through it is more than enough.
    As for the shower thing… like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, the best thing about pushing your own limits is when you can stop.

  12. You could write “10 reasons you should single-hand a sailboat to a remote destination” with more or less the same effect.
    With that in mind, Mountaineer, I shall suggest a destination for you: Saint Helena, a bastion of British civilisation in the South Atlantic. I suggest a small ketch or yawl, one below twenty-five feet in length, instead of a more expensive craft.
    You’d better hurry, however — the residents of Saint Helena have been building an airfield, so your arrival may not be quite as interesting as that of previous explorers.
    On a related note: it’s also more interesting to run with the chicks who would also run, rather than staying in easily obtained, comfortable, resource-diverting situations. If anything, this should sort out those who need easy diversions — her smartphone won’t work from the Atlantic for very long …

    1. Only a person who has never climbed could make such a comment. I’ve sailed extensively and done climbing/mountaineering. There is no comparison between the physical level of effort and ever present danger. Every moment of doing a technical grade climb is life threatening. It requires focus and effort nonstop. Sailing is mostly boredom, interspersed with periods of lots of intense effort. Storm sailing or nightwatches in bad weather with lots of traffic are stressful and wearing in their own way, but just nowhere near the same as climbing.
      Just sayin’… You should go try climbing and see how hard and terrifying it is.

    2. Trekka is 20 feet and circumnavigated handily. When you’re talking small boats a few feet of length is a big difference in masses and forces. For a solo sailor it’s a good size. Not so small that you feel like a mummy when confined to the cabin, not so large that just dealing with the boat gets to be too much.
      The Pardey’s Seraffyn is 24′ 7″, and that’s a live aboard for two.
      “Comfort at sea is only relative. It is a boat you can handle alone in
      the worst conditions, one you can comfortably maintain in perfect
      condition with less than a month of maintenance a year, and one you can
      truly afford,” – Cruising in Seraffyn

  14. Well, I’m not a climber, but when you’ve hiked up to summit a few really tall “hills,” you start to say, “is this a story that’s really going to interest the ladies.”
    My climbing gear now involves a helicopter, skis, and a case of champagne. 😉 (not to mention a few Nordic and/or Scandinavian beauties)

  15. I just got back from 5 weeks in Argentina climbing Mt. Aconcagua and chasing tail after. This article is fucking spot on. Especially as regards motivation. Shed 20 lbs in 3 months training for it, spent 3 weeks on the mountain ditching 12 more, then had 2 of the most game-productive weeks of my life. I’m 36, American, and notched a fellow climber (Mexican/39/7.5), tourist backpacker (Israeli/22/8), nightclub girl (Argentine/19/7.5), & bar waitress (Argentine/27/9.5 – bang of my life). 4 other hookups that didn’t lead to sex. Right now I’m on cloud 9. I’m no slouch normally, but these are not numbers I often put up. But I came off the mountain leaner and more confident than I’ve ever been, by a long shot. I’m a changed man. Highly recommend climbing a mountain, and doing what it takes to prepare, for anyone looking for a severe and effective kick start towards many goals.
    As an aside, Roosh’s advice & thoughts on Argentina are pretty much spot-on. I had to work my ass off for the 2 girls I did notch. Worth it, though. I will be returning.

  16. Great Post! Inspiring and makes me interested in trying this out one day. I’ve always wanted to ascend Mt. Whitney, though that’s not really mountaineering. But I hear it’s quite grueling and I’ve ascended some very difficult trails like Mt. Gorgonio in Southern California.

  17. yes. before learning about “game” people would always ask how I got so many girls. and all I did in my spare time was hiking up the local mountains. I would always come down feelings like a king.

  19. “Spiritual growth. Humility. Tighten your inner game WHILE bonding with your brother.” Stop making Texas looks bad. The red pill game is for homos with anger issues and too much free time looking for butt play to brag to other assholes on this site. All because you never were man enough for your daddy.

  20. So thats it, the answer to all lifes problems, just climb a mountain, all my problems are solved! Win

  21. At the foot of Ben Lomond (Scotland), carved in 10 feet of stone, it says “Mountains are the fountain of men.” Worth the visit.

  22. I’ve got my first mountain planned in less than a month. I’m climbing Mt. Rainier. Everything in this article is true from just what I’ve done on surrounding peaks…can’t imagine what Rainier should be like..

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