Mountaineers catalog number: MTR.2009.2
These notes are by Lowell Skoog. See also MTR.2009.1 Othello Phillip Dickert Photographs and MTR.2018.1 Agnes Dickert Papers.
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Mountaineers Climbing Courses
HAVE YOU TRIEDHave you ever sat with your comrade in strife
Like a lazy god on a sun-warmed peak?
No matter your niche down below that's called life
Up here you command and you find what you seek.Have you ever felt of a free swinging rope
Of a crampon that bit, or a piton that held?
Have you looked with despair, and then with new hope
When a tug brings assurance of a brotherly weld?Have you ever steered through an icefall by night,
Or bivouacked by storm on a slippery ledge?
Have you ever sought blazes by candlebug light,
Or dug for the lost in an avalanche wedge?Have you ever thrilled to the feel of a hold,
Walked on airy aretes with the sky white and blue,
Or looked back at the summit just turning to gold?
If you have, you will know why the climber is true.Why true to his comrades, his learning, his gear.
Why true to the mother who bends his ear.
But if you have never, climb up and scale high,
And return to me, fellow, then we'll talk, you and I.
Miscellany