Beneath a Mountain

Standing and studying Mt. Morgan. Christmas Day 2009

I have been at this mountain sport game for 23 solid years now. Yet still, when I stand beneath a towering peak, when I look up at its enormity and into its features, I am still in awe.

For me it is both humbling and inspiring. Humbling because I am nothing to a mountain, my body is weak and fragile compared to rock and steepness. In all these years, countless friends have not returned from their days in the mountains. As I grow older that memory is all the more present and influential to my decision making. But still I go, for my own greatest experiences are within big mountains with those closest to me.

While the mountains are humbling, they are also forever inspiring. I look at them with a longing to enter, to explore. I see a couloir and I want to know how steep it is, does that restriction go? What would it be like to climb that ridge? My body knows the skills that allows movement in the mountains. I want to test myself, I want to keep going further into them.

As a mountain sports photographer the mountains inspire my on a different level. I want to capture other people within their beauty and size, I want to reveal our place within them, to show off what we humans can do with our skills, fitness and passion. It is not just the mountains that are beautiful but our passage through them. With all of this they draw me back day after day, it is what I do. Each morning I rise knowing I am going back, and I never tire of this feeling. To stand beneath a mountain is a very special thing.