During the Romantic era of the late 18th century, the perception of mountains as hellish and inhospitable places began to change. Artists and poets began to explore these exciting places, displaying reverence to their natural beauty and the emotions that being among them stirred. Mountain landscapes become desirable, thought of as beautiful. Interest in them soared.
A word gathered momentum, one used to describe the feeling of traversing a narrow mountain crest, the airy sensation of nothing but air on either side of the walker, of the thrill of exposure. The word that describes these perverse pleasures, this mixture of awe, fear and excitement, is sublime, taken from the Latin sublimis for elevated or lofty.
