While I enjoyed the history and nostalgia of Fallen Legends, I want to focus on the two accessory readings. These pieces complemented the theme of exploration that spoke to me in the opening chapters of Weaver’s and Isserman’s work and shed interesting non-climbing historical lights on the mountain realm.

‘The Mountain: A Political History from the Enlightenment to the Present’ was truly interesting! This reading was fascinating from a social aspect and historically informative. After all, mountains are a matter of physical and social perspective! It’s all relative; pastures, woodlands, hummocks, can all be mountains under the right conditions. I found it interesting that no particular aspect of a chunk of land necessarily provided it “mountain” status for apparently much of recorded history.

Hark! The Scientists! Finally, the hills are objectified, measured and classified. Put precisely, “A mountain was no longer a mountain by virtue of the use made of it, but rather by virtue of the characteristics proper to it.” And yet, from the scientists we receive only more uncertainty.

I particularly enjoyed the description of eighteenth century physical geographer Philippe Buache’s theory concerning continuous chains of mountains transecting the globe. This was something of a geologic and cartographic postulation. This interesting idea stemmed from the existence of very large “river basins” (essentially drainages) which Buache hypothesized could only be separated by mountain ridges. Basic information about a river’s general direction essentially gave rise to wild assumptions about the headwater topography of remote regions. These assumptions were of course proven wrong, but in many ways the fact that Buache considered physical landmarks in any way separated him from the status quo of political geographers who ran rampant at the time.

Fortunately, this line of improved methods continued to give birth to exploratory cartographic efforts on every continent. Despite rapid improvements to surveying and expeditioning equipment, mysteries abounded into the 20th century. It is amazing to me that something so massive as Mount Everest can go totally unnoticed simply because it’s in the middle of nowhere. To measure a thing, you must identify it. A truer, less helpful fact of science there has never been.

Back to Earth…

I found some interesting connections between ‘The Mountain’ and ‘Dancing Lamas’. As we learned in the former, for much of history politics defined the geographic realm. However, the latter describes many ways in which the zeal to map, measure, and conquer Mount Everest turned the tables. Everest became a vital bargaining chip for the government of Tibet, with “‘Everest passes being handed out like welcoming gifts to the British” when their favor was sought (pg. 743).

Not surprisingly, the pimping out of Mount Everest created conflicts between Tibetan military/industrial contemporaries and the religious establishment. Leaders like the Dalai Lama appear to have been stuck in the middle, seeking compromise and wellbeing for their people but feeling an obligation to stand up against abuse of their hospitality. For example, while Tibet benefitted from British aid during periods of Chinese aggression, British expeditions did not make a great name for themselves during many visits to the region. Mistrust seems to have been rampant, and representations of Tibetan culture in Western media must only have angered the already embattled Tibetan public. Tensions in the region prevented accurate surveying of Earth’s highest point until long after many superior feats of science had been accomplished.