Editor’s note: The following editorial from June 2, 1938, does not necessarily reflect the views of the Bulletin’s editorial board today.

Last month the members of Bend’s track team participated in a state meet at Corvallis. The fact they won is incidental to the purposes of this discussion. What is not common knowledge is that each boy on the team, in spite of the fact that he had been checked and double checked at intervals through the season, had to undergo a searching examination by a physician before he was allowed to compete.

Had those same boys, or any other group of individuals for that matter, decided to climb Mt. Hood, no examination would have been required. And yet, we submit, climbing Mt. Hood is a job which calls for physical fitness fully as much as do the sports of high school and college.

How true this is has been proved twice this season. Each proof was made at the expense of a human life. Most recent was the case of a 16-year-old Portland high school boy. His heart failed as he neared the mountain’s summit. His heart was strong enough for its ordinary duties; he had lived to the age of 16 years. It was not strong enough for mountain climbing, especially when the mountain was Hood.

There is no way that we know to make a satisfactory examination a requisite for membership in mountain climbing parties. We could wish that there could be such requisite made and enforced. It would be for the benefit of those optimists who will attempt achievements which are too far beyond them. It would be for the benefit of those whose bodies harbor weaknesses of which they are ignorant. It would be, too, for the benefit of Mt. Hood’s reputation, which is not being helped by the tragedies of its steep slopes.

As such a rule cannot well be enforced, however, the best that can be done is to offer the advice and urge its acceptance. Before any unusual physical undertaking, an examination is good business. That is true at any age. As middle life approaches, as its years pass, as they recede, a periodic check-up, with the periods not too widely spaced, is just as good business.

Be sure you are fit for the things you are doing, that your strength is equal to the demands which you are making of it. You will live longer and probably enjoy life more.