Ascending Peaks

Those extraordinary souls never
saw a mountain range that
failed to stir their blood, an
unnamed peak that, like the
mythical sirens of the deep
called out to mariners drew them
irresistibly, heedlessly, to make
their virgin ascents. Those 19th
Century alpine adventurers,
warriors to the unknown fearsome
heights of the world's fabulous
ceiling came to the Swiss Alps,
the Canadian Rockies, the Himalaya
of Nepal, to ranges in Spain, in
Ireland, the Hindu Kush in Pakistan
and beyond, to challenge nature's
geology and her ferociously
unforgiving climatic atmospheres.

Chronicling exposure to ice fogs,
gale-force winds, days of
unceasing snowfall burying their
paltry tents and themselves
until they ventured thigh-deep
and determined, malnourished
but driven, to ascend a razor-sharp
icy peak, watching in helpless
horror as a companion hurtled
into the chasm below. Somehow
surviving falls into unseen chasms
below, somehow rescuing
themselves from a dashed, frozen
death to recount their tales and
infuse others with their passion,
returning time and yet again
to new opportunities and
inspiring conquests until their
fate-allotted time had passed.