Epilogue

This chapter reviews the idea of the summit position that has been a very powerful one within modern mountaineering culture. At various times over the last few centuries the idea of conquering mountain summits has been entangled with imperialist ideals. It emphasizes how viewing mountain scenery is linked with ways of envisaging landscape that have an elitist history, where the ability to appreciate and access places of beauty and sublimity has been a marker of social distinction. The chapter talks about the enjoyment that many people take from experiencing physical challenges in difficult mountain terrain, which is the legacy among other things of late nineteenth-century developments within mountaineering culture. Mountains have often been used as landscapes for the exercise of an elite, white, able-bodied, male identity and has involved importing an outsider perspective that elides the experience of those who live and work in the mountains.

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Beauty · Cartography · Elite · Geography · Identity (music) · Mountaineering · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Politics · Summit · Visual arts · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Philippine History and Culture · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts