Course Description

"We have climbed the mountain,

There’s nothing more to do

It is terrible to come down

To the valley Where,

amidst many flowers,

One thinks of snow."

--Donald Justice

Explorers have ventured many places over the centuries, but mountains have held a special draw to many. Mountains have been viewed as both foreboding obstacles that divide peoples and as spiritually significant points worthy of pilgrimage. Mountains have held both the promise of untold riches and the possibility of unforgiving terror. Some have been lured to the mountains for science, some for religion, some for personal glory, and others to harvest the earth’s bounty. Whichever the reason, pioneering mountaineer Elizabeth Knowlton noted that, “to those men who are born for mountains, the struggle can never end, until their lives end.” This course examines why people have explored mountains and the draw of reaching high altitude. Students will study first-hand accounts, literature, and primary sources of both historic and contemporary mountain journeys from around the world and compare them to their own experiences here in the Mountain West.

This course unfolds in both the classroom and the field. There are three required weekend field trips into the mountains outside normal class time. These include: a weekend day trip up the tram to the Sandia Crest in the Sandia Mountains next to Albuquerque in late August; a weekend day hike in the Sangre de Cristos Mountains above Santa Fe in mid September; and a hike up the pilgrimage site of Tomé Hill in Los Lunas on a Sunday in October. This is also an optional hike to the San Antonio Hot Springs in the Jemez Mountains and an optional ski or snowshoe day trip (location determined by snow pack) in November. This course has a required $45 course fee to cover some field trip costs.

Texts

Books

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird

The Shameless Diary of an Explorer: A Story of Failure on Mt. McKinley by Robert Dunn

Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

Nature Writings by John Muir

Other Course Materials

Touching the Void (film) by Kevin Macdonald, director.

A series of academic journal articles from the fields of Archaeology, Anthropology and Cultural Geography available for free download in PDF format.

Requirements

This course will be conducted both in the classroom and in the field as students participate in seminar discussions and complete a series of written projects. There are three day long field trips on weekends outside regular class time. Students must, because this course contains significant field components, be physically able to travel to and hike outdoors in a variety of weather conditions and at high elevation.

About the Instructor(s): Troy Lovata

Troy Lovata, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Honors College and Faculty Affiliate in UNM’s Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, where, for two decades, he has taught courses on landscape, culture, and how the past is defined in the present. He holds degrees in Anthropology with a focus on Archaeology from Colorado State University (Bachelors) and The University of Texas (Masters and Doctorate).