ABSTRACT
Daunting rock pinnacles, knife-edged arêtes, cascading glaciers and explosive avalanches of blinding snow-and a team of grim-faced climbers risking everything in their arduous upward press to bag another summitthis is perhaps the conventional image conjured up by the word mountains. It is a vignette that might recall upper sections of the Alps, Andes or Himalaya. But these lofty regions represent only a small fraction of our total mountain terrain. Sadly, images of the heroic age are now too often supplanted by the reality of warfare, abused natural resources, impoverishment of mountain peoples and the environmental and economic disruption caused by climate change.
