The movies have long been convinced themselves that any story can be improved by adding a romance. Not true. Any story can be improved by leaving out as much as you reasonably can. Consider North Face, the bone-chilling, superbly mounted record of an assault on the north face of the Eiger, which is known by the grim understatement as the last remaining problem in the Alps.
Mountain climbing terrifies me, because it has such a ruthless digital simplicity. It is either one or zero: (1) You are holding on. (Zero) You are falling. Time s arrow flies in one direction. Once you aren t holding on, there is nothing you can do. No skill, no courage, no training, nor any rope or piton.