The Savannah morning news., 1903-09-20

exhaustion. The president of that
noble army of climbers,-The Alpine
| Club,-heaved a sigh recently at the
thought that ''the field for mountai-
! neers is beginning TO show signs of ex-
| haustlon." Ditto the ordinary travel
ling public. They are showing con
| siderable signs of exhaustion" These
| persons who gobble up a mountain or
! stalk over a glacier between break
Iast and supper are too immense. They
weary one What proof is it of a
mans pedestrian greatness to exhibit
| a huge alpine stock with the names
| or 100 peaks branded all around it?
l carry a grizzly claw in my pocket
Just for luck. Is that any proof that
killed it? With the greatest reverence
/ IN the world for the true Alpine clim-
Der, these fellows with branded stocks,
| VINO talk about mo more worlds to
conquer are too premature. Let us
hear what the greatest of all climbers
Mr.. Whymper-has to say about this
exhaustion"
Ones thoughts go at once to that
grand view from Calgary, Calgary is
100 miles away, before you enter the
mountains,) of mountains stretching
north and south as far as the eye could
see, countless in number, nearly all
unknown and unnamed. This great
array is only the fringe and quite a
small part of the border of the mass
in general. If you shift your position
90 or 80 miles to the west and gaze
around from one of the higher points
about the Great Divide" the reflection
that the field for mountaineers is be-
ginning to show signs of exhaustion
viii not occur; for from east to west
as well as from north to south, ex-
tending beyond the range of telescope
vision, one is surrounded by an ocean
of peaks, apparently endless which
suggests the word inexhaustible. -
There. are, then, plenty of plums still
to gather!
Two Glasses of Mountain Climbers.
To pick these plums there are two
classes of mountain climbers, the pro-
fessional and the amateur. 1 don't
know any better way to distinguish
them than to say they are separated
by line, i. e., the professionals are
men of experience who venture into
such difficult and dangerous work that
they have to be ''roped' fore and aft,
twelve feet apart, to a guide. The
amateurs ought not to climb places
where they need a rope. The profess
SIGNALS come from far and wide and
hither they come for the sole and sin
gle purpose of crossing new glaciers
and climbing new peaks; the amateurs
come for pleasure and take mountain
climbing as an episode. Even the
third class who sit on hotel piazzas
and climb all the peaks in magma
ton, or else on a porch, one day ac-
cidentally climb a mountain and forth
with they Immediately enter the class
of amateurs.
Now, professional work in mountain
climbing has just begun up here in the
Rockies. The Rev. James Outram, an
athletic parson, was the pioneer. This
gentleman, having made many first
"ascents" over the world, came to Can
ada in 1901 and successfully assembled
Mt. Assiniboine which was the first
time the feat had been done. Many
times since then the peak has been
essayed and failure has been the re-
suit. About two weeks ago a couple
of sturdy Aberdeen men travelled four
teen days from Scotland and 1 talked
with them on the hotel piazza. They
had come over to climb Assiniboine.
Are you going to climb Mt. Assini-
boine?" said 1. I'VE are going to take
a look at it, was the very modest
and deliciously English reply. 1 saw
them at another place a week later.
They had taken look at it and bagged
it between 3 a. m. and p. m. And
this was the thing they bagged in
twelve hours: Mt. Assiniboine, hight,
1850 feet shane, "a sheer pyramid
of vertical rock, towering high over
vast glacial fields; on the north three
perpendicular faces. ice-glazed, over
hanging and precipitous; on the west
side a beetling buttress, down which
avalanches pour all the year; on the
east a sheer precipice; on the south,
walled masonry" 1t was like pulling
teeth from a hens mouth to extract
informa ton from this successful aero
naut (for 1 take it, from the above de-
scription that he went up in a balloon)
so very shy and deprecatory is this
remarkable race of Travelled English
men. Mt. Goodsir, another hitherto
inaccessible coquette of the clouds, has
fallen victim to another Englishman