In reply to Tim Chappell:
> On 2, you missed something I said earlier, or meant to say, which was that I'd only do this if I was in Milan or Geneva or similar on work anyway, as I am sometimes. I can't afford to jet out and back for one route.
I certainly did miss that point, in which case I apologise.
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> On egotistical stunts: I don't really get your point. If I happen to go up the Matterhorn by the tourist route, who's supposed to be impressed? I don't see that it raises any questions about egotistical stunts that aren't raised by anything else that a punter like me does.
Well, it is going against the standard advice; which implies that 'I'm so good that such questions wouldn't arise in my case'. Irrespective of the fact that the Hornli is the Voie Normale, it has a rather unsavoury whiff about it to me that just won't go away. But then I confess that this is a problem I've always had with any kind of 'racing' or charity runs in the mountains (which are often very damaging to the mountains and result in totally unnecessary injury and use of emergency services - shocking example recently in the Lake District). Again, for the same reasons, I personally can't stand the idea of the 'Dovedale Dash' - the amount of damage that used to cause was totally shocking. The hills reduced to nothing more than a sporting arena. OK, I'm probably in a small minority on this, but I've felt like this all my life about such things (it's exactly what I was saying 22 years ago in 'Eyes to the Hills')
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> And after all, we punters are the least egotistical of mountaineers. Unlike the cutting-edge climbers we do our thing, and no one's impressed, ever, because what we do just isn't very impressive...
But your argument is still on the axis of what is impressive-unimpressive in human terms, rather than on the beauty of the hills and mountains themselves.