Prelude: Mountains in an Uncertain World* - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 5

1881 by Mummery, Bergener, and Venetz; the Austrian-German assault of
Eiger's Nordwand in 1938; Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal's gruelling
adventure on Annapurna in 1950, the fi rst successful attempt on an 8,000
metre peak; or John Hunt's triumphant expedition in 1953 which put
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the summit of Mount Everest.
As in many other 'occupations', women entered the mountaineering scene
relatively late. Vera Komarkova, on whose doctoral committee I served,
was the fi rst of her sex to climb an 8,000 metre peak (Annapurna 1978, and
Cho Oyu six years later). Mountaineering had rapidly extended beyond the
Alps to high mountains throughout the world, and remains a vital source
of character formation, challenge and creative thought.
Today most people maintain that mountain peaks are never conquered —
because (to paraphrase George Mallory's quip), they are still there , unfazed,
unaccommodating and impersonal. We may climb, we may litter, but
we always leave; that is, unless we succumb to altitude and leave our
remains amongst the growing mounds of garbage. It is perhaps symbolic
that Ed Hillary rated as his proudest accomplishment the building of
schools and hospitals in the Khumbu. Nevertheless, electrifying feats of
mountaineering still unfold and these may serve to provide inspiration if
handled appropriately.
Tourism ushered in a new engagement between humans and
mountains. It began in the Alps as an elitist diversion at the height of the
British Empire and, with the rapid increase in accessibility during the 20th
century, merged into mass tourism and trekking all over the world. In the
early years following World War II this rapid growth of tourism was greeted
with great anticipation as one likely solution to world poverty, particularly
among mountain communities. This optimism has faded and the impacts
have had mixed results at best. Nevertheless, the increased contact with
hitherto isolated subsistent people has introduced a sharper awareness of
alternatives to the frantic pace of life in the 'outer' world—an interest in
regions characterized by the ingenuity, courage, persistence and dignity of
mountain dwellers from whom we all have much to learn.
Exploration and scientifi c research unfolded as another dimension in
our awareness of mountains, also linked chronologically to the development
of alpinism and 19th-century elitist tourism in the Alps. The close association
of mountaineering and research is exemplifi ed by many of the early scholars:
Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Sveinn Pálsson, Alexander von Humboldt,
Jean Louis Agassiz, John Tyndall, among others. Much of this early scientifi c
development was motivated by intellectual curiosity, which certainly needs
no justifi cation, although imperial and national overtones were to emerge.
Nevertheless, glaciology and tectonic geology unfolded as vital academic
disciplines.