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Author Notes:

I wrote this after an ill-advised but ultimately worthwhile August hike/climb up Mt. St. George in British Columbia - it's in the Kakwa Provincial Park, just off the Alcan Highway.   We weren't fully prepared for driving snow at only 7000 ft in August, but the poem sums up the end of the climb nicely.   It's a good thing we're often impractical in our youth; otherwise we'd miss out on so many things.   I didn't really want to write about the trip down - bleagh.

MT. ST. GEORGE, B.C.

A frigid wind whips at my worn frame.

A thin sheet of ice crunches underfoot.

Our reasons for climbing aren't the same;

I am restless and just cannot take root

and my friends all take it as a game.

The path to Hell is steep and narrow,

And leaves little for climbers to see;

it has the look of Shakespeare's barrows.

August sunlight bursts through clouds;

Shining St. George looms o’er the plain.

At summit I watch the sun-torn shrouds.

My soul sings, the dragon slain —

Calgary to the east and scores of peaks try
to seize my eye —
I have become the sky.