Mazamas

Publication Year: 1973.

Mazamas. The Mazamas of Portland, Oregon, look back on 1972 as another year of high level activity in its climbing, hiking, and skiing activities. Each year the membership grows: from 1088 in 1960 to 2453 in 1972. Thanks in part to the increased amounts of spendable income available to young people, the club’s growth continues despite the requirement that a person must first climb a peak with a living glacier before applying for membership and despite an annual resignation rate of about 10%. Over the years the club has increased the number of its outings beyond the original Annual Outing. During the year well subscribed outings were fielded in the Tetons, the Northern Cascades, the Olympic Peninsula, and on various rivers of the West. Climbing school was limited to 360 basic students, with several hundred being turned away. A limitation on enrollment must be made to insure the quality of instruction. The ski school was mobbed by hordes of beginners wanting to learn something about skiing. The great ground swell of interest in cross-country skiing was reflected within the club’s activity.

Meanwhile, the club has come under surveillance by the Internal Revenue Service, which is questioning our eleemosynary status. It is hard to believe that the government truly condones the squelching of outdoor clubs, when the same government is wasting vast sums on social programs that accomplish little or nothing. When one considers all of the constructive leadership that the outdoor clubs give to people of all ages, urging and helping them to enjoy the trees, birds, and animals of the forest, to exalt in the beauty of the outdoor world, to promote a better way of life, then it is unconscionable, in the Mazamas' view, that government should actively work to destroy these outdoor clubs through their policy of taxation.

Jack Grauer