"Philistines may think that we were madmen indeed to go through such suffering and danger to arrive at this lonely spot. What did you hope to find up there, they may ask. Glory? Nobody cares about young fools who waste their best years in meaningless combats far from the eyes of the world. Fortune? Our clothes were in rags, and the next day we would go back down to a life of slaving for the barest essentials. What we sought was the unbounded and essential joy that boils in the heart and penetrates every fiber of our being when, after long hours skirting the borders of death, we can again hug life to us with all our strength. Nietzsche defined it thus: The secret of knowing the most fertile experiences and the greatest joys in life is to live dangerously."

Lionel Terray, Conquistadors of the Useless