Most people see mountains as wonderful scenery far away. As they the whitened peaks of the mountains and the massive mountain structures fielding kilometers and kilometers behind the horizon, this is what I loved watching while my family and I were driving to the Italian mountain complex – Trentino. Other views that most people see are the views from the tops of the mountains, where they were taken by a cableway. They adore sometimes even the higher peaks of the mountains that are hidden behind the clouds with the sun hidden behind them as well, that is a view that the human eye does never forget. And finally, the views that every skier or snowboarder sees is their shadow in the snow, the snow flying behind their skies or snowboard, the cities they could see from the top, now getting bigger and bigger as he is getting lower and lower on the ski slope. What some unfortunate people see is the tree they hit, due to “the bad calibration of the ski slope”, which definitely couldn’t be their mistake, or the helicopter they remember in the misty memories from the past few hours, and the scared faces of their family. If we aim our focus at the nice things, it was indeed a positive look at the mountains.

The view that most people don’t see, is the view of mountaineers climbing the mountains in bad conditions, such as blizzards, coldness, oxygen bombs on their back, tons of snow underneath their shoes, and thousands of meters under the cliffs. The fear of falling off the cliff, fear of running out of oxygen, fear of losing their friends, altogether losing lives. Some people wouldn’t dare to do anything like this, such as myself, but some tremble with passion thinking about getting to the highest peak of the world. And I wonder, “Are they crazy?”, “Is the stress and the thought of dying something they want?”. It isn’t fear for them, it is adrenaline.