I'm currently reading a story of two men who are setting out to hike all 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail. To carry a fifty-pound pack 2,000 miles through mountains, snow and rain is almost unbelievable. Mountain climbing involves a whole other level of risk. Perhaps this summer you've read Into Thin Air, an account of an ill-fated ascent of Mount Everest. Climbers may lose fingers, toes, hands or feet to frostbite as they try to climb the world's tallest mountains.
Some people even pay the ultimate price of their lives when avalanches occur or blizzards roar in.
It is a rare year on Mount Everest in the Himalayas or even Mt. McKinley in Alaska where there are not serious injuries or fatalities. These climbers are not unaware of this. It is part of the cost of climbing to the most forbidden places, the locations where few persons of this human population will ever stand and gaze out at the vista. These athletes are willing to take the risk and pay the price of their passion. They know going into their events that their fields are risky but they are willing to go forward.