A glorious late summer day. A hundred thousand peerless peaks rise into the sky: grassy hills, rocky pinnacles, snow peaks, narrow ice ridges, tall and short, a multitude of old friends and countless strangers.
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| "As innocent and quiet as only a harmless pinnacle can be..." Photo by courtesy of Alpine Light & Structure |
There they parade themselves, beckoning and inviting, each in its own way: that one offering its green pillows for an easy repose, the dark one hinting at scrambling pleasures, the snow dome with its a morning’s worth of devotions, to say nothing of that promising ice ridge … Look how they beckon!
A young mountaineer sets out cheerfully, as if answering a summons. How could he resist? Which one of the mountain throng was it? Won’t it be hard for him to make his choice? Unerringly, he cleaves to his path, carelessly leaving behind whole chains of mountains, each of which could enchant him, as he weaves through the massifs. On foot, he marches up a long valley surrounded by marquee peaks, further and further, inexorable.
Somewhere in the serried rows of mountains a gap yawns and a valley opens up, one like a thousand others, and beyond it, hardly to be remarked by mere mortals, beckons a little white peak, as innocent and quiet as only a harmless pinnacle can be.
The mountaineer quickens his step as he enters the valley. Suddenly a fever seizes him, and breaking into a run, he finally achieves the summit, overjoyed to be on his little white peak.
As for those hundred thousand other peaks, could it be that they are envious?
References
This is an excerpt from a centennial translation of Ihr Berge (1916), a mountain memoir by Hans "Hamo" Morgenthaler (1890-1928). Translation (c) Project Hyakumeizan.
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