'White Rabbit' Response

In her essay "White Rabbit", Holly Keith illustrates how taking a risk, such as climbing a mountain solo in the winter, is not about the reward or the journey, but instead about the idea and whether or not one believes in its possibility. She supports this theme with her conclusion to the essay, stating that snowshoes and all the items in her pack are insignificant unless "your mind takes your body there first". In other words, if one cannot imagine climbing a mountain, they are not likely to climb a mountain. I was struck several times by her straightforward tone. For example, she says "I look at them with warm feet", when describing other women on the trail in the summer that wear flip-flops directly into the snow. Her matter-of-fact attitude and blunt statement was humorous and informative at the same time. Furthermore, I appreciated the amount of juxtaposition that consistently appears throughout the essay. For instance, Keith describes how she "who neither loved mountains nor winter loved mountains in winter". The rhythm of this sentence was enjoyable for me as a reader, and helped me to understand how she came to cherish the White Mountains.