Why climb?

If the real goal of a climb is not to get to the top but return safely, why go at all? What makes a seemingly intelligent person willing to take a risk for goal with no practical value?
Why engage in a pursuit that can only be considered frivolous and selfish when compared against the impact of a loss of life.
There is no goal that is at the same time more real and more abstract than the top of a mountain. Maybe some of the answers lie therein.
A summit of a mountain is a clearly definable objective that can be reached only by dedication, good planning, hard work and luck. The first look at a big mountain fills you with fear: It's impossibly huge, no human belongs there.
But to control your fear, you think of the mountain as steps, and taking one at a time, you find there is no single step you cannot make. You keep moving upward until every direction leads you down and you realize, after a moments confusion, that you're at the top.
There were no impossible obstacles, the only barriers were in your mind.
Mountains are permanent and indifferent, they can't be conquered. What you conquer are your fears and you perceived limitations.
Easy challenges are no challenges, but harder ones come with bigger risks.
Dealing with those risks will call on dormant strengths in yourself that you might otherwise never have discovered.
Nothing is more empowering than taking a risk and succeeding.
We admire those who take great risks but if they fail do we call them foolish? Worse, what if they die trying? Was it a stupid waste of life?
Saying "they died doing what they love" doesn't replace the sense of personal lost.
So why do people climb?
Because climbing reduces life to it's simplest, most basic elements: food, shelter, survival.
Humans are designed to deal with these essentials, not the trivia that fills our everyday lives.
Climbing elevates these senses to a higher degree, emotions become intense and, unexpectedly it is relaxing.
Challenging nature on its own basic terms and succeeding brings exhilaration on a grand scale.
Each of us should have his or her own mountain - a testing place in any endeavor where the goal is almost, but not quite beyond reach.
When you take a great challenge and accomplish it you discover that your abilities are more than you ever imagined, enabling you at times to accomplish the "impossible".
A life lived in this way is infinitely fulfilling.......

"If you have a dream, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."
Johann Goethe