Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1910-06-29

opportunities. Some people, to be sure, started
their careers as mountain climbers in the United
States and have confined their indulgence in the
sport to the mountain regions of Yankeedom, but
they surpassed numerically by the subjects
of Uncle Sam who first became converts to noun
tain climbing in Switzerland or other foreign
parts and then came home perhaps to discover
that we have just as difficult peaks under the
Stars and Stripes be found in any part Of
the old world.
Sometimes fate steps In and makes what
might be termed an involuntary convert to Ameri-
can mountain climbing. A case in point is that
of Charles E. Hughes, governor of New York, who
has recently been appointed to the United States
Supreme court. Mountain climbing Is the pet
hobby Of Governor Hughes, and for years he spent
every summer In Switzerland scaling the peaks.
Then came his election to the gubernatorlal posi-
ton and with it responsibilities which in
effect made it impossible for him to engage in
prolonged vacation far from home Thereupon
Governor Hughes and his son-who is likewise
a mountain climber-turned their attention to the
Ad1rondacks and here he found peaks that
aroused his enthusiasm, for they are clad In
dense forest growth that Is quite as battling in
many respects as glaciers and crevasses and the
governor discovered that a mountain 5000 feet
high may test the mettle of a pedestrian quite as
fully as some more lofty peaks.
Mountain climbing in the Adirondacks, in the
White mountains OF New Hampshire and in the
ginia has been an accepted summer sport for
some years past, but it has grown tremendously
In popularity of late. Some of the experienced
climbers who enjoy the sport only when it in
wolves hazards that test the steadiness of eye
clearness of head and sureness Of foot in the
maximum degree are wont to regard none too
seriously the assaults Of the amateurs on the
mountains east of the Mississippi, but It must
be admitted in defense of mountain climbing in
the east that it has brought color to the cheeks
and sparkle to the eyes Of many weary city
dweller and in not few instances 1t has served
as preparatory school for climbers who have
later become experts in more exacting environ
ment. In the west, on the other hand, we have
mountain climbing that. from every consideration
of danger and daring ranks with any similar &C.
tivity abroad, although, to be sure, newspaper
readers hear much less about 1t. Perhaps this
latter circumstance is due in part to the rarity
In America Of those narrowing accidents which
cost the lives Of so many mountain climbers in
Switzerland. In the southwest the trip up Mount
Wilson in California has become popular diver.
sion for both men and women and the Grand Can
yon of Arizona-that great cash in the earth 13
miles wide and mile deep-is affordng an
equivalent of mountain climbing that is without
rival or counterpart, scenically or otherwise
the other side of the Atlantic or indeed any.
where In the world.
The Yosemite valley, with its sheer walls of
rock and other freaks Of nature, offers problems
that have commanded the respect and inciden-
tally fired the ambition of mountain climbers of
every nationality, while Alaska has in Mount Nc
Kinley peak that is generally accounted one of
the most difficult in the entire world. Generally
speaking mountain climbing in America has
reached it's most pretentious development in tho
Pacific northwest and in the Canadian Rockies
In the latter region-the Switzerland of Amer
ica-there glaciers as formidable and as in
teresting any expanses of snow and Ice in for
eign lands and the snow-capped peaks Of Mount
Hood and Mount Rainier have afforded to the
people Of Oregon and washington constant object
lessons that have proven an incentive to noun.
tain climbing. Swiss guides have been brought
to the Canadian Rockies for the benefit of new