SO MUCH HAS BEEN MADE of the question "Why do we climb?" As David Roberts notes in his new climbing memoir, On the Ridge Between Life and Death, "From Victorian days onward, climbing writers have spilled flagons of ink shaping transparently lame answers."

So why do we climb? For the challenge. Climbing is an act of hubris, a psychological-cum-physical defiance of the most fundamental earthly power: gravity. Some enjoy participating in this; many enjoy reading about it. And, yes, it's a risky, nakedly narcissistic, mythic business—precisely why it's a good read—but here's the catch: The proximity to death can brilliantly illuminate life itself, hence a mountaineer's willingness to step so close to that bright edge. But slip over that edge and the brilliance is extinguished, and suddenly your death becomes a black hole for those left behind.

Why we climb is personal, but how we climb—a question hardly ever asked—is communal. How we climb defines the spirit of our sport. How we climb has a direct impact on not just the practice and future of mountaineering but the health of the alpine environment.

Last year, my good friend Keith Spenser went to Everest. He spent ten grand and two months on the North Col route, the climb Norton attempted in 1924. Keith did not summit. Back home in Laramie, he gave us a slide show—and this synopsis of the experience:

"There's no leading to do on this route. There's a fixed line at the base of the North Col that goes all the way to the summit. Guide companies hire Sherpas to put up the ropes. For the average client—oxygen, tent, fuel, stove—it's all carried up by Sherpas. You couldn't climb the mountain by the standard routes on your own anymore even if you wanted to. You'd be six inches from a fixed line and the Sherpas have already staked out all the tent platforms for the clients. It's not mountaineering. It's not even an adventure. At best, it's an endurance event."

Last year also marked the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of K2, at 28,250 feet the world's second-highest peak. Steep and technical, with a reputation for taking lives, K2 has always been considered a mountaineer's mountain. But the Everest contagion reached K2 in 2004. There were more than 200 people on the peak, a greater number than ever before; six climbers and six porters died. Fixed lines—ropes attached to anchors at the top and bottom that essentially act as a handrail—were set almost all the way to the summit on the Abruzzi Spur. Sherpas were brought in from Nepal to hump up bottles of oxygen. There were more than 40 ascents, almost every one on fixed lines, more than half oxygen-assisted.

Oxygen and fixed lines are being used on 26,906-foot Cho Oyu, the sixth-highest peak, as well. How long will it be before all the 8,000-meter peaks are terminally ill? Five years? Ten? There's been a fixed line between 15,000 and 16,000 on the standard route up Mount McKinley for years. How long before this line is extended to Denali Pass—or to the summit? How long before there's a fixed line up the Grand Teton's Exum or Rainier's Liberty Ridge?

This is climbing without style. When the technology, techniques, knowledge, and precedents of a sport evolve, so must the rules.