From a eulogy-essay for climber Royal Robbins (1935-2017), "On the Rock, Looking Inward and Outward" by Katie Ives:

The stories of adventurers, Robbins believed, should be about more than just entertainment or escapism; the forms of their narratives become natural metaphors for how humans interact with the wild. Much of modern Western society remains enthralled by tales of human dominion over nature and dreams of endless technological expansion. In contrast, Robbins embraced a philosophy of limits and absences: the holes that climbers didn't drill into the stone; the traces they didn't leave behind; the quiet spaces of the mind they explored in airy solitude. If an excess piton could symbolize a misplaced word in a poem, the silences between the lines represent his proudest work, gaps that reflect an inexpressible mystery he ... sensed within the world.

(cf. California Sherpa (2000-05-27), The Belay (2004-04-10), Touching the Void (2004-06-02), Mount Dana and Mono Lake (2004-09-03), Eastern Yosemite Mountains (2006-06-02), Mount Whitney (2007-06-16), John Muir (2008-07-27), Between (2009-12-10), Gap Between the Worlds (2013-01-12), Space Between (2013-10-13), Betwixt (2015-07-04), Work the Whitespace (2017-05-07), ...) - ^z - 2017-05-26