River Falls Journal

Why Men Climb Mountains

It Is Good Sport and Moreover a Severe Test of the Bodily Powers.

Why do men climb mountains?

Primarily for sport, secondly because they love nature, and lastly driven by a desire to conquer those strong, giant-like forms which seem to defy one.

Mountain climbing dates back many years. Dante mentions it casually in some of his works. Conrad Gesner, a Swiss naturalist, describes the pleasures and profits thereof in his writings, says the Boston Globe.

More Europeans have gone into the sport than Americans because, for one reason, of their proximity to lofty ranges. But America has some men who are well known in Europe, not only for their ascents but for their knowledge of the subject.

Prof. Fay of Tufts college is a famous Alpinist. At his home are many souvenirs of his Alpine trips, one of the most interesting being a large photograph of Mount Kangchenjunga, 16,430 feet above sea level.

"You ask what is the real value of mountain climbing? Well, it is merely a good sport," said Prof. Fay, "but here is something that will perhaps convey, better than I can now, the object of all mountaineers."

He brought out a little pamphlet, one that he once prepared for the Cambridge conference. It contained the following:

"A mountaineer loves the mountain as a boy loves some older friend whose noble character has been to him an inspiration, who, as he feels, is bringing out the best in him. He loves the mountain for the wonderful story it tells him, for the grand anthem its forests sing to him, for the rich and varied gallery of nature painting that in sunshine and storm, in the daytime and in the night season, it reveals to his eyes; and finally—yet by no means least—he loves it for the test of his bodily powers to which its conquest subjects him every time that, yielding to an irresistible longing, he undertakes the task of scaling its lofty summit."