The First Hillbilly

What's a mountaineer?

Apparently, it's a hillbilly in tights and a doublet, out of control at the TSA checkpoint.

Yep, Shakespeare scores the first usage of this august word, describing redneck road rage!

The evil Cloten draws his sword against Guiderius in Cymbeline and insultingly demands his disguised enemy to surrender: "Yield, rustic mountaineer" (IV.ii.100). Guiderius triumphs, however, and beheads Cloten, "Who call'd me traitor, mountaineer" (IV.ii.120).

Thanks to 100-year flooding, big ice routes are already in nic in Colorado. I mean check this shit out! Here's Scott Bennett documenting early season ice climbing on Long's Peak last week. Holey moley!

Photo courtesy Scott Bennett for
Skyose Extreme Sports News

Dude, just a reminder when traveling for the holidays, please sheathe your bare bodkin!  Don't be That Guy:

The noun ‘Mountaineer’ adopts the French derivation, like buccaneer, cannoneer, charioteer, and musketeer. The term mountaineer provokes offence in Cymbeline, because the mountainous country of Wales was thought in Shakespeare's day to be inhabited by either outlaws, or illiterate rustics akin to the "hillbilly" stereotype of today [apologies to Wales!].

Many thanks to the Scottish Mountaineering Council for setting me straight on illiterate Welsh rustics.
 
Safe travels, fellow mountaineers, we happy few, we band of brothers.