It is easy when you are young to believe that what you desire is no less than what you deserve, to assume that if you want something badly enough it is your God-given right to have it... I was a raw youth who mistook passion for insight and acted according to an obscure, gap-ridden logic. I thought climbing the Devil's Thumb would fix all that was wrong in my life. In the end, of course, it changed almost nothing...I came to appreciate that mountains make poor recepticles for dreams.