Bruce Barcott quotes:

A gripper of a read . . . Silence revives the cliff's-edge drama of those Jazz age climbs and drives home the tragedy of Mallory's death.

The mountain receives our expressions and becomes part of us; we imprint our memories upon it and trust it with out dearest divisions of out lives. Mt. Rainier does not exist under our feet. Mt. Rainier lives in our minds

This is what we see when we look up at Rainier, the beauty, the horror, the awe the unbelievability of size that confirms our own consequence on this earth. We look at the mountain, like god and can imagine nothing larger. Its incompressible life-span reminds us of the fleeting mortality of our own bones. It looms over our lives on clear days and and stay present but hidden through the clouds of winter. Like god it remains everywhere forever.

The thing that I still come back away with is how close so many people feel to the mountain [Mt. Rainier] emotionally and psychically, and yet how far away the world is when you're on the mountain.