“An alpinist, I already know, is a climber of mountains by difficult routes, by technical routes: real climbing to summits like this one. The ice hammer itself is a key to the world of legends that I’ve dreamed of in my fading boyhood: the world of climbers like Reinhold Messner, Hermann Buhl, Riccardo Cassin, Walter Bonatti, and Yvon Chouinard.”

“An alpinist, I already know, is a climber of mountains by difficult routes, by technical routes: real climbing to summits like this one. The ice hammer itself is a key to the world of legends that I’ve dreamed of in my fading boyhood: the world of climbers like Reinhold Messner, Hermann Buhl, Riccardo Cassin, Walter Bonatti, and Yvon Chouinard.”

— Steve House