Full Human Workout

Why do people climb mountains?

Greg Slayden (founder of Peakbagger.com) wrote a great essay about peakbagging and listed the main reasons most people climb mountains.

Challenge: Climbers want to prove themselves against the mountains and give themselves tangible goals (summits) to see how they measure up.
Exercise: Mountain climbing is a great way to stay fit; those climbers who are not killed in accidents often lead healthy, active lives well into their 80s or 90s.
Social: Climbing is often a group activity and a great way to spend time with friends and family.
Wilderness: Mountains are often in wild, remote areas, and climbing is a great excuse to explore those blank spots on the map and get away from civilization.
Scenery: Mountains are visually stunning places to be, and the views both from the summits and on the way up are often spectacular.
Nature: Climbing mountains provides excellent opportunities to observe plants, animals, birds, geology, and other facets of the outdoors.
Sports/Hobbies: Climbing mountains lends itself to a whole host of fun sports and activities, such as skiing, mountain biking, backpacking, photography, trail running, fishing, base jumping, and others.
Climate: Mountaineering is a great way to increase the amount of wind, rain, snow, and overall coldness in your life, which is often a welcome respite for those from the desert or the jungle.
Inspiration: Sometimes a climber sees a peak and just somehow feels inspired to climb it, especially prominent and striking summits such as the Matterhorn or the Grand Teton.
Existential: Climbing a mountain to get to the top. Or, to quote Mallory, “because it’s there”.

My own motivations are a combination of factors. But what I think makes mountaineering unique (and the overlapping sports of hiking/rock climbing/canyoneering) is that it offers so much more than a full body workout. Mountaineering tests the limits of strength and endurance, often in high altitude, low oxygen environments. It tests your mental abilities in planning, mapping, problem solving, and navigating multiple types of terrain. Like a muscle, mental strength fades unless it is tested. It tests your emotional ability to overcome fear. It tests your grit. The truly difficult adventures test every faculty and stimulate every sense and every fiber of your being. Mountaineering inevitably places you in life or death situations, testing your ability to stay alive. And spending all day in a remote wilderness means you will experience the sacred, whatever that means to you. It is a "full human workout" and I can think of no other sport or activity that pushes you on so many levels and rewards you on so many levels.

The mountains are the best place to experience moments of awe and magic. Awe and magic.