BUTTERFLIES OF MT. HOOD 153 



that breaks the fierce light into the prismatic 

 colors of life, and the white rays now blind your 

 eyes and blister the skin of your face and hands. 

 The air is lighter in your lungs; the cold is keen 

 and constant ; the look of all things strange and 

 unfriendly. 



This leaving of life is so real an experience, as 

 the climber watches the shapeless, diminishing 

 trees, the vanishing ground squirrels, and the last 

 flattened flowers, dwarfed to nothing but root and 

 blossom before they are blotted out, that he can 

 scarcely get up to Barrett's Spur without feeling 

 the presence of death, a consciousness deepened 

 from here on by the extreme narrowness of the 

 footing and the utter withdrawal of space from 

 about him, space that in the crowded valleys of 

 life he had been used to leaning upon. 



From the Spur to Tie-up Rock our path was a 

 narrow back that divided the two glaciers. At Tie- 

 up Rock we were belted and fastened together 

 and roped to the guide, who now led us out upon 

 the steep snows that reached up and up to the 

 summit, towering, as it seemed, almost straight 

 overhead. 



The climb was without accident, and as moun- 



