The Mountaineer D1 
the wear that day for with a twenty pound limit on baggage 
ingenuity was hard pressed to find the wherewithal to keep 
dry. Some improvised hooded capes out of their dunnage bags ; 
some folded newspaper shawls about their shoulders; others 
made umbrellas of rather restricted area but unlimited water 
shedding capacity (down the back of the neck) out of tin basins 
and baking pans; and one fair lady who was not altogether 
enamoured of camp life made an anomalous picture of misery 
wrapped in an oilsilk bed-cover of vivid and giddy yellow. But 
the star, perhaps, was the staid Englishman who wore his 
collapsible bucket on his head and shrouded his shoulders in 
a capacious bath towel. 
It was uncomfortable of course, but not too much so for 
us to make merry over it nor to enjoy its picturesqueness—the 
dozen campfires glowing among the trees, each one of which 
was the center of a lighthearted, laughing group of moun- 
taineers, improvising verses and songs fitted for the occasion. 
There was a supper party even, where barbecued ham = was 
consumed between song and story. And then the stars shone 
out and we could go to rest. 
After a day’s delay, during which the weather fulfilled 
all expectations and obligingly cleared, the majority of the 
party started up Woods Creek for Rae Lake. 
No spot in all the Sierra can surpass Rae Lake. It lies 
close under a circle of high, beautfully sculptured, wonderfully 
colored mountains, a long, narrow lake, divided midway by a 
promontory where twisted, storin-beaten pines grow among the 
rocks. Northward the mountain walls stand apart revealing 
the canyon of Woods Creek and the distant peaks beyond, all 
watched over by that rugged guardian of the lake, Fin Dome. 
Between the tiny islands that dot the irridescent surface of 
the water sparkling ripples play, shivering the images of the 
painted mountains and chasing the shadows of the passing 
clouds, those glorious troops of luminous cumuli that daily 
journey across the paths of the sky. 
Another charm, too, Rae Lake boasts—its trout are of phe- 
nomenal size and abundance, and nowhere else is there such a 
paradise for fishermen. Two beautiful days and two moon- 
light nights quickly passed, days spent in fishing along the 
deeply indented lake shore and in exploring the nearby Sixty 
Lake Basin. Three men climbed Fin Dome, presumably a first 
