“We love the mountains. There is something soul-stirring about being surrounded by peaks, spires, and cliff faces towering thousands of feet above you. They stop you in your tracks, seizing you with wonder, while simultaneously compelling you to grab your CamelBak and hit the trail. When we were growing up, our family made regular pilgrimages to Rocky Mountain National Park, and every time we entered, we immediately started scoping out all the rocks we wanted to climb. Now, it’s important you understand that neither of us has ever qualified as mountaineers or even climbers in any technical sense, but what we lacked in skill was made up for in imagination. We could see ourselves ascending. From our vantage point in the back seat of the car, every rock we saw was a rock we could definitely climb if our parents would only turn us loose on the mountainside.

Now we are parents, and though our families love the national parks, our perspective has shifted. You could say that we have developed a healthier respect for the journey. Our own kids are now the ones clamoring to be released and go explore. And it’s not that our sense of adventure has vanished, but we have discovered that the route you take matters. Even the best climbers in the world know this to be true. Just watch Alex Honnold’s nail-biting, ropeless ascent up the three-thousand-foot face of El Capitan, documented in the film Free Solo (if you haven’t watched it, that should be one of the first things you do at the start of your journey through this book). Alex chooses his way very carefully. He climbs along established routes. Haphazard exploration at such great heights can easily prove deadly.”

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