My name is Luke Smithwick, I make no claims to be world class. I make no claims to belong to an elite fraternity. Alpinism to me is climbing in the mountains with minimal needs. Food, shelter and the skills to accomplish an objective. I work as a professional athlete, mountain guide, and avalanche forecaster. I train for my climbs and ski descents in a style that suits my goals while I work. I must say that requires focusing on myself for significant portions of the day while also meditating on my goals. Without a goal, I cannot train, and I venture to say the other aspects of my life aren’t in full accord without a goal in the future. Goals give me balance.
At 40 years of age I’ve reached a point in life where sport achievement aren’t the means to an end. What I do in the mountains are a way of life, the harvest in the farm garden, the concerto after the struggle of training and failing, the answer to the search for deeper meaning in life. This punctuation is what makes life go forward on rainy days, in times of doubt and times of hardship, or unexpected injury.
Art requires imagination, a creative process to producing a visual work that expresses ones own interpretation of existence. I do not dream often while sleeping at night. I’m exhausted most days as we all are, and I like to think it’s because I’ve given myself as best I can for the given day. Climbing is an art. Skiing is an art. In a day and age of art continually evolving and standing on the shoulders of the practitioners who came before us, it’s important to know our own history. On the steps of the library where I studied in my teenage years, the facade read that he (or she) who doesn’t know history remains always a child. I couldn’t agree more.
What’s an alpinist? How do they differ from a mountaineer? An Himalayan alpinist climbs a route or peak by minimal means. The alpinist brings the equipment for survival and to climb the route by their own means. The alpinist does not rely on others to fix a rope up the route, establish tented camps for them, or otherwise rely on others for the ascent or the ski descent. This is alpinism, an art, defined as I see it.
A Himalayan mountaineer in the current day employs a style of ascent with others fixing a rope up the route in advance, establishing camps on the peak in advance, and also having assistance in carrying equipment to each camp to aid in the ascent. Many deem this style “commercial mountaineering” and it is the status quo for climbing mountains and routes in the Himalayas.
Neither Himalayan alpinism nor mountaineering are right or wrong. Neither Himalayan alpinism nor mountaineering are better or worse. We all choose routes and the style we want to climb them in. I climb peaks and routes in both styles, as an athlete and also as a mountain guide. I must say that leading others to a summit and success is far more rewarding than achieving one of my personal goals as an athlete. I enjoy the balance of pursuing both, by pursuing both styles of climbing and skiing as an athlete and as a guide, I find the balance that gives me life. Sharing and supporting others on the one hand while inspiring and fulfilling my own personal desires as a mountain athlete.
What does alpinism mean to you?
-Luke Smithwick | 1236 | Pokhara, Nepal | April 3, 2020 | 1400m (4,578ft)
