Just returned from three weeks in Sierras, Whitney, and other places, so to help my mountain-withdrawal here are some quotes from famous mountaineer-writers.

Rod, I hope you see these as you asked for more! Feel free to vote on your favorite, mine are the first and last ones. Harvey



Why Go?
In some ways, going to the mountains is incomprehensible to many people and inexplicable by those who go. The reasons are difficult to unearth and only with those who are similarly drawn is there no need to try to explain.
Joe Tasker, Savage Arena page 260

The are few treasures of more lasting worth than the experiences of a way of life that is in
itself wholly satisfying. Such, after all, are the only possessions of which no fate, no cosmic catastrophe can deprive us; nothing can alter the fact if for one moment in eternity we have really lived.
Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain page 454


The Challenge
Only a contact with reality, realities of endurance, of uncertainty and of service, can train character...There is no such reality in the competition of games, or of examination. It can only be found in contests of uncertain issue, and progressive severity, with opposing natural forces: either with other human beings in destructive warfare, or with the elements, waves and winds and height and space.
Geoffrey Winthrop Young in foreward to
Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain page 311

Early Start and Summit Day
That virtue is its own reward we were beginning to learn, for in the matter of early starts we found there was no other.
Eric Shipton, Nanda Devi page 109

For the first hour I plod along in mood of deep gloom, of self-pity and of dislike both for my companions and for the whole silly business of mountain climbing. I am stiff and tired, my legs and shoulders ache, in my hands and feet I detect undeniable symptoms of frostbite, the slopes above look impossibly long and steep, and my only desire is to lie down and sleep. The first halt works a subtle but profound change, and during the next spell, though it would be overstating the case to say that I am happy, I am not wholly insensitive to the grandeur of my surroundings, I
am tolerant at least towards the minor shortcomings of my friends and willing to admit that mountaineering is not entirely unrewarding.
Eric Shipton, Mountains of Tartary page 581


Summit
But I shall go down from this airy space, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation;
For once I stood
In the white windy presence of eternity.

Excerpts from Eunice Tietjens, "The Most Sacred Mountain" in Peter Boardman, Sacred Summits


The Bond
Where each man pulled his weight each must share the credit; for, though it is natural for
each man to have his own aspirations, it is in mountaineering, more than in most things,
that we try to believe
The game is more than the players of the game,
And the ship is more than the crew.

using Kipling, A Song in Storm, HW Tilman, The Ascent of
Nanda Devi page 267

Reflections afterwards
But in any field of human activity it is not the road of approach that matters, but the attitude of mind; for whatever changes of time and experience may bring, whatever conceits or failures, something of the early feeling will always remain.
Eric Shipton, Upon That Mountain page 323

Once a mountaineer has climbed so high, for the rest of his life he dreams of returning.
Peter Boardman, Sacred Summits page 173