A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEBBA 61 



shed off like avalanching snow. I persisted, how 

 ever, creeping on all fours, and shuffling up the 

 smoothest places on my back, as I had often done 

 on burnished granite, until, after slipping several 

 times, I was compelled to retrace my course to 

 the bottom, and make my way around the west 

 end of the lake, and thence up to the summit of 

 the divide between the head waters of Eush Creek 

 and the northernmost tributaries of the San 

 Joaquin. 



Arriving on the summit of this dividing crest, 

 one of the most exciting pieces of pure wilderness 

 was disclosed that I ever discovered in all my 

 mountaineering. There, immediately in front, 

 loomed the majestic mass of Mount Eitter, with a 

 glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, 

 then curving westward and pouring its frozen flood 

 into a dark blue lake, whose shores were bound 

 with precipices of crystalline snow; while a deep 

 chasm drawn between the divide and the glacier 

 separated the massive picture from everything else. 

 I could see only the one sublime mountain, the one 

 glacier, the one lake ; the whole veiled with one 

 blue shadow -rock, ice, and water close together 

 without a single leaf or sign of life. After gazing 

 spellbound, I began instinctively to scrutinize every 

 notch and gorge and weathered buttress of the 

 mountain, with reference to making the ascent. 

 The entire front above the glacier appeared as one 

 tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, 

 and bristling with spires and pinnacles set above 

 one another in formidable array. Massive lichen- 

 stained battlements stood forward here and there, 



