Somewhere between lacing up my boots and reaching the summit, the answer comes to me for the perpetual question: Why Climb? Before I return to the base it is gone, as ephemereal as the thin vein of ice I followed to the summit. It's all for the best — it is personal and continually evolving, like the sport itself.

I was drawn to the mountains as a teen and find myself as intrigued by them now as I was then. Spiritual connection, physical dependency, escapism, desire for adventure who knows.

Taking people into the mountains as a career was an easy choice. Watching sunrise through breaths of thin air, pulling on crampons in bitter cold, carving out an ice cave at 12,000 feet — all of it forms a unique perspective that you simply can’t understand unless you have experienced it for yourself. As a mountain guide, I facilitate opportunities for growth and give climbers of all ability levels a glimpse into a new and different world that is no longer concrete, no longer material…but completely personal.
        –Kevin Mahoney

Kevin is proud to be sponsored by the following companies: