200 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



first beams of the morning and take a sunbath on 

 some favorite flat-topped boulder. Afterward, 

 well warmed, he goes to breakfast in one of his 

 garden hollows, eats heartily like a cow in clover 

 until comfortably swollen, then goes a-visiting, 

 and plays and loves and fights. 



In the spring of 1875, when I was exploring 

 the peaks and glaciers about the head of the 

 middle fork of the San Joaquin, I had crossed 

 the range from the head of Owen River, and one 

 morning, passing around a frozen lake where 

 the snow was perhaps ten feet deep, I was sur- 

 prised to find the fresh track of a woodchuck 

 plainly marked, the sun having softened the sur- 

 face. What could the animal be thinking of, 

 coming out so early while all the ground was 

 snow-buried? The steady trend of his track 

 showed he had a definite aim, and fortunately it 

 was toward a mountain thirteen thousand feet 

 high that I meant to climb. So I followed to 

 see if I could find out what he was up to. From 

 the base of the mountain the track pointed 

 straight up, and I knew by the melting snow 

 that I was not far behind him. I lost the track 

 on a crumbling ridge, partly projecting through 

 the snow, but soon discovered it again. Well 

 toward the summit of the mountain, in an open 

 spot on the south side, nearly inclosed by disin- 

 tegrating pinnacles among which the sun heat 

 reverberated, making an isolated patch of warm 



