60 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



ing alike. I strode on exhilarated, as if never more 

 to feel fatigue, limbs moving of themselves, every 

 sense unfolding like the thawing flowers, to take 

 part in the new day harmony. 



All along my course thus far, excepting when 

 down in the canons, the landscapes were mostly 

 open to me, and expansive, at least on one side. 

 On the left were the purple plains of Mono, repos 

 ing dreamily and warm; on the right, the near 

 peaks springing keenly into the thin sky with 

 more and more impressive sublimity. But these 

 larger views were at length lost. Bugged spurs, 

 and moraines, and huge, projecting buttresses 

 began to shut me in. Every feature became more 

 rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any 

 chilling effect; for going to the mountains is like 

 going home. We always find that the strangest 

 objects in these fountain wilds are in some degree 

 familiar, and we look upon them with a vague 

 sense of having seen them before. 



On the southern shore of a frozen lake, I en 

 countered an extensive field of hard, granular 

 snow, up which I scampered in fine tone, intend 

 ing to follow it to its head, and cross the rocky 

 spur against which it leans, hoping thus to come 

 direct upon the base of the main Bitter peak. The 

 surface was pitted with oval hollows, made by 

 stones and drifted pine-needles that had melted 

 themselves into the mass by the radiation of ab 

 sorbed sun-heat. These afforded good footholds, 

 but the surface curved more and more steeply at 

 the head, and the pits became shallower and less 

 abundant, until I found myself in danger of being 



