Post 00622
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My most unpleasant climb was with a fateful six,–three loving young couples. Two college professors about to be married formed one of the couples. He, the son of wealthy parents, had been sent West to mend his health and manners; he met a young school-ma’am who reformed him. They attended the same college and became professors in a State school. They were to be married at the end of this outing; but on this climb they quarreled. Each married another! Sweethearts for years was the story of the second couple. They, too, quarreled on the trail, but made up again. The story of the third couple is interestingly complicated. He was rich, young, and impetuous; she, handsome and musical. For years she had received his ardent attentions indifferently. As we approached the top of the peak, he became extremely impatient with her. As though to make confusion worse confounded, after years of indifference the young lady became infatuated with her escort. He tried to avoid her, but she feigned a sprained ankle to insure his comforting closeness. They are both single to this day. Meantime the six had a general row among themselves, and at the close of it united to “roast” me! Whether imp or altitude was to blame for this deviltry matters not; the guide had to suffer for it.
Early in guiding I conceived it to be my duty to start for the top with any one who cared to try it, and I felt bound also to get the climber to the top if possible. This was poor theory and bad practice. After a few exasperating and exhausting experiences I learned the folly of dragging people to the top who were likely to be too weak to come back. One day a party of four went up. Not one of them was accustomed to walking, and all had apparently lived to eat. After eight hard hours we reached the summit, where all four collapsed. A storm came on, and we were just leaving the top when daylight faded. It rained at intervals all night long, with the temperature a trifle below freezing. We would climb down a short distance, then huddle shivering together for a while. At times every one was suffering from nausea. We got down to timber-line at one o’clock in the morning. Here a rest by a rousing camp-fire enabled all to go on down. We arrived at the starting-place just twenty-four hours after we had left it!
Mountain-climbing is not a good line of activity for an invalid or for one who shies at the edge of a precipice, or for any one, either, who worries over the possible fate of his family while he is on a narrow ledge. Altitude, the great bugbear to many, is the scapegoat for a multitude of sins. “Feeling the altitude” would often be more correctly expressed as feeling the effects of high living! The ill effects of altitude are mostly imaginary. True, climbing high into a brighter, finer atmosphere diminishes the elastic clasp–the pressure of the air–and causes physiological changes. These usually are beneficial. Climbers who become ill through mountain-climbing would also become ill in hill-climbing. In the overwhelming number of cases the lowland visitor is permanently benefited by a visit to the mountains and especially by a climb in the heights.