The Mountaineer 33 
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT OLYMPUS 
MARION RANDALL PARSONS 
Ets UGUST ninth was a busy day in Elwha Basin. Late snows 
sitated a knapsack trip. Many were unprovided with knap- 
sacks or packstraps and ingenuity was sorely taxed to improvise easy- 
riding packs. Sweaters, coats, trousers, even stockings were pressed 
into service; and the dunnage scales achieved unwonted popularity as 
worried novices endeavored to make necessities balance with their 
self-imposed limitations as burden bearers. 
The volunteer corps of young men who travelled to the Queets 
Basin and back that day, carrying the bulk of the commissary, lght- 
ened packs wonderfully for the rank and file, indeed made the trip pos- 
sible for many who otherwise might have hesitated to undertake it. 
This was only one instance of the splendid spirit of co-operation mani- 
fested throughout the outing, a really wonderful spirit of unselfishness 
and willing service that contributed very largely to the trip’s success. 
Brilliant sunshine made a happy omen for our departure next 
morning. With hearty cheers and good wishes from our comrades 
who remained behind, we started gaily upstream towards the fine 
water-fall that hung high on the western wall above camp. Just be- 
neath the fall a low defile gave easy access to the main Elwha Canyon. 
The young stream, the headwaters of the river we had followed from 
the Straits, was entirely hidden under its winter coverlet of snow. 
From wall to wall stretched the steep white slope, flecked with brown 
hemlock cones and branches torn from the storm-swept, struggling 
trees above. On the heather-grown slopes and rocky abutments of the 
canyon walls colonies of marmots were established, whose shrill warn- 
ing whistles mocked the instrument of authority that timed our breath- 
ing spaces. Lucky indeed we felt it to be, as we toiled upward under 
our packs, that these denizens of the hills attuned their alarms to 
the stopping signal! 
A strange, outlandish crew we were, we pilgrims to high Olympus. 
Nothing in countenance or accoutrement suggested the lofty nature of 
our aspirations. With faces daubed with grease paint of varying hue 
and quaint design, with shoulders burdened with knobby bundles, with 
tin cups, bandanna lunch-bags, field-glasses, ropes, ice-axes, alpen- 
stocks, cameras, or cooking utensils variously disposed about our per- 
sons, we trudged solemnly upward in single file towards Dodwell-Rixon 
Pass. Soon the tedium of the slow climb in line was pleasantly relieved 
