Amazon.com description: Product Description: Common belief has it that people go in for mountain sports expressly because they endanger life and limb of the participant, even at the individual's high level of competence to execute them. Challenging Mountain Nature reveals that, with rare exceptions, extreme sports are not at all risky in any major way; hobbyists in these fields are not, as a rule, suicidal. Nature-challenge activity involves surmounting barriers posed by the natural environment for deep fulfillment, and offers an exhilarating peak experience. Thus, this is not the language of risk, but rather it is the language of leisure and psychological flow. This book examines climber, kayaker, and snowboarder involvement in their core activities, as well as their preparation for them, the ways they relate them to uninvolved friends and relatives, and how they mold their own participation in them around personal and occupational obligations and other serious and casual leisure interests. The study also included extensive participant observation of low-, medium- and high-challenge participants in action (to the extent possible and safe for the researcher) as well as related activities.