I knew that people sometimes died climbing mountains. But at the age of twenty-three, personal mortality-the idea of my own death-was still largely outside my conceptual grasp. When I decamped from Boulder for Alaska, my head swimming with visions of glory and redemption on the Devils Thumb, it didn't occur to me that I might be bound by the same cause-and-effect relationships that governed the actions of others. Because I wanted to climb the mountain so badly, because I had thought about the Thumb so intensely for so long, it seemed beyond the realm of possibility that some minor obstacle like the weather or crevasses or rime-covered rock might ultimately thwart my will. At
( Jon Krakauer )
[ Into the Wild ]
www.QuoteSweet.com