“I felt so, too,” Spider put in. “Whenever I looked down, and couldn’t help thinking what would happen if I fell, then I got kind of sick inside. But when I was just thinking about my next step, I was all right.”
“And nothing happened,” the doctor added. “Climbing is safe enough if you know how to climb, if you are in good physical condition, and if you can control your nerves. But you can no more tackle a climb like this safely without a guide who knows the technique than you can fly an aeroplane without practice. The accidents happen either to people who try to climb without knowing the tricks, or to people who aren’t in good shape for the hard work, or to people who can’t keep their nerves under control and take each step slowly, carefully and firmly.”
“What made me so tired at the top?” Bennie asked. “I was twice as tired then as I am now. Was it the altitude?”
“No,” said his uncle. “Ten thousand five hundred feet wouldn’t bother you a bit. It was because you are still a green climber and you were fighting your nerves all the way up the pinnacle. Nothing is such hard work as fighting your own nerves.”
“Well, I’ll tell the world my old nerves put up a good scrap, then!” Bennie laughed. “Anyhow, Spider and I aren’t so green as we were three days ago. I wish the Boy Scouts gave merit badges for mountain climbing. I bet we could get one.”
“Why don’t they give badges for that, I wonder?” Mr. Stone said.
The doctor shook his head. “Too dangerous,” was his comment. “How many scout masters could you find who are really skilled mountain climbers? Think what would probably happen if a green climber tried to take a bunch of scouts up Jefferson. They’d all land down in the cañon. And rock climbing is just as dangerous.”
“How would you get up the pinnacle if it was all ice, the way it was in a couple of places?” Spider asked. “I mean, so hard, you couldn’t drive your stock in, and the man below you couldn’t either?”
“You’d have to use ice axes,” the doctor replied. “An ice ax has a long handle, and on the back of the blade is a long, sharp, slightly curved point, like a railroad spike. You cut your steps with the blade, and then you use this point, driven in above you, to anchor with. That’s what they use in the Alps, where so much of the climbing is on glacier ice.”
“Well, Spider, we’ll have to go to Switzerland next, and climb some old glaciers,” Bennie grinned.