The Days of a Man 



D899 



Alps and 



Sierras 



contrasted 



Mount Whitney, the highest, at the head of the 

 Kern, has an elevation of 14,501 feet, just a little 

 less than the Matterhorn, 14,705, and a shade 

 higher than the Finster Aarhorn, 14,026, while at 

 least twenty-two of our summits overtop the famous 

 Jungfrau in the Bernese Oberland. But Mont 

 Blanc, "the monarch of mountains," reaches a 

 height of 15,781 feet or did, at least, before the 

 last great rock avalanche, which is said to have 

 lowered its crest. 



Comparing once more, the Swiss peaks present 

 greater variety of form and of geological structure, 

 with greater contrast in color, their dazzling snows 

 being sharply set off against green forests and 

 flower-carpeted pastures. In Switzerland also the 

 heavy snowfall fills every higher depression with 

 glaciers, while in California, with its relatively low 

 precipitation, such dwindling traces of a former era 

 have (with scant exceptions) long since passed away. 



The Sierras, nevertheless, are richer in color; 

 they throb with life, and over them flows a dry, 

 stimulating, balsamic air. Furthermore, a superb 

 view from any summit always rewards the climber, 

 for the celestial blue is broken only by the occasional 

 midday thunderstorm. The Alps, on the contrary, 

 are bathed in rain or swathed in clouds to a dis- 

 couraging degree, and the atmosphere is really 

 clear only when the south wind presages or the north 

 wind follows a storm. The blast over, the sky 

 once more needs wiping. 



Again, the glacial basins of the High Sierra, huge 

 tracts of polished granite furrowed by streams and 

 fringed with mountain vegetation, are more im- 

 pressive than the Upper Aar, majestic though 



654:1 



