The Mountaineers
by Jack Barker-Clark

We toiled under all the same manias. We worshipped mountains and trenches and volcanoes. Though we knew our gendarme from our arête, our abseil from our rappel, we were no explorers, and on weekends we dragged ourselves up into the woods behind our houses, pioneers, and took the gentle assent to the hilltop as though we were backpacking in the Carpathians, as though we were traversing the Transylvanian plateau.