Petrarch

Upon finishing Petrarch's "Ascent of Mount Ventoux", my first thought was: here is reason enough why the mountains kept their secrets from people until the 18th century. In his closing statements, Petrarch wrote "How earnestly should we strive, not to stand on mountain-tops, but to trample beneath us those appetites which spring from earthly impulses."

Petrarch believed his mountain empty, and his effort to summit worthless when compared to human contemplation of the divine. He was too taken with scripture to pay his accomplishment much mind.

"How many times, think you, did I turn back that day, to glance at the summit of the mountain which seemed scarcely a cubit high compared with the range of human contemplation..."

What a goof. Would that he had tried Everest, where the thin air steals contemplation straight from our consciousness.