2 GEOLOGICAL SUEVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



Stevenson, whose experience in this wild life for sixteen years, as my 

 I)rincipal ass.istant, gave liim great advantages over any one else 1 conld 

 secure for that trust. This party started from Ogden, Utah, surveyed a 

 route to Fort llall, and there laid in supplies and made the necessary 

 preparations for a pack-train up the unknown region of the Upper Snake 

 Valley. The party was also provided with a chief geologist, topogra- 

 pher, meteorologist, botanist, and other necessary assistants. From 

 Fort Hall this party proceeded up the west side of Snake lliver. Two 

 weeks were spent in making a careful survey of the previously unknown 

 Teton Basin. The range of the Three Tetons was carefully mapped. 

 Eleven of the party attempted to ascend the highest peak, the Grand 

 Teton. Only two of these succeeded, Messrs. Stevenson and Langford. 

 So far as we can ascertain they are the only white men that ever reached 

 its summit. 



In the summer of 18G0 the party under the command of Colonel W. 

 F. Eayuolds, to which I was attached as geologist, camped for several 

 days at the base of this range. AVe had with us as guide Mr. James 

 Bridger, wlio was more familiar with the western country and the 

 events in its history for the past fifty years than an^^ living man. 

 He regarded the ascent of this peak as impossible, and many of the old 

 mountaineers and trappers state that it has been attempted many times 

 without success. 



Immense masses of snow and lakes of ice were found on its sides, and 

 abundant signs of modern glacial action. At certain seasons of the year, 

 usually in August and September, the air is filled to a great height 

 with grasshoppers flying in every direction. They sometimes rise to 

 the height of many thousands of feet. As they passed over this Teton 

 Eange they became chilled and dropped on the snow and ice in vast 

 numbers and gradually melted the snow, so that the myriads of little 

 holes which the}' formed gave to the surfiice a peculiar roughness. It was 

 due to this fact that Messrs. Stevenson and Langford were able to 

 cling- to the almost vertical icy sides of the peak, and complete the 

 ascent. They found the elevation to be 13,858 feet above the sea, thus 

 entitling it to rank among the monarch peaks of our continent. 



Yet on the summit of this peak there were indications that human 

 beings had made the ascent at some period in the past. On the top of 

 the Grand Teton, and for 300 feet below, are great quantities of granite 

 blocks or slabs of difi'erent sizes. These blocks had been placed on 

 end, forming a breastwork about three feet high, inclosing a circular 

 space six or seven feet in diameter, and while on the surrounding rocks 

 there is not a particle of dust or sand, yet the bottom of this iuclosure 

 is covered with a bed of minute particles of granite, not larger than the 

 grains of common saud, which inust have been worn oft' by the ele- 

 ments from the vertical blocks until it is nearly a foot in depth. There 

 was every appearance that these granite slabs had been placed in their 

 present position by Indians, as a protection from the wind, many cen- 

 turies ago. 



