My First Summer 



walking where I like in pure wildness, 

 with what I can carry on my back, and 

 when the bread-sack is empty, run down 

 to the nearest point on the bread-line for 

 more. Nor will these run-downs be blanks, 

 for, whether up or down, every step and 

 jump on these blessed mountains is full of 

 fine lessons. 



August 8. Camp at the west end of 

 Lake Tenaya. Arriving early, I took a walk 

 on the glacier-polished pavements along the 

 north shore, and climbed the magnificent 

 mountain rock at the east end of the lake, 

 now shining in the late afternoon light. 

 Almost every yard of its surface shows the 

 scoring and polishing action of a great 

 glacier that enveloped it and swept heavily 

 over its summit, though it is about two 

 thousand feet high above the lake and ten 

 thousand above sea-level. This majestic, 

 ancient ice-flood came from the eastward, 

 as the scoring and crushing of the surface 

 shows. Even below the waters of the lake 



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