460 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TERRITORIES. 



on. In the intervals of his cooking he opens the mess-boxes, sets them 

 about four feet apart, opens out the leaves, and, placing a sujjport un- 

 der the middle, spreads his cloth, and the table is ready. A short time 

 before everything is ready he rings tlie first bell for breakfast, by yell- 

 ing out, in the barbarous mountain dialect, " Grub pile !" or sometime^ 

 simply " grub," for short. At this there is great commotion, and the 

 rest of the crew " pile out " in all sorts of shapes and in all states of 

 nudity. They hurry, for there is no driver like hunger, and they now 

 feel a yearning in the inner man that cannot be repressed, and their 

 love of sleep itself gives way. A general rush for the nearest water 

 soon takes place. In a few seconds all are washed, and immediately 

 commence the attack on the breakfast-table. They make short work of 

 it, and at 7 o'clock all are in their saddles and off. 



Following the trail up the creek, we fouud it very rough, but at a 

 point west of station 12 the bed of the caiion widened out, and from 

 there our riding was quite easy. Leaving a notice on a tree near this 

 place, for the train to encamp, we ascended a low peak to the south and 

 west of the creek. From this point we succeeded in clearing up some 

 ])oints in the topography which had been unavoidably missed from sta- 

 tion 12. Two miles west of it was a very high, massive mountain, with 

 a great horizontal band of white running across the face of a high 

 bluff on the northeast side of the peak. This mountain bears on the 

 map the name of Handle's Peak, and was ascended the- day after this 

 as station 14. 



From station 13 we had a splendid view of the red mass to the north 

 and east, station 12 being the nearest of all the peaks. The last 2,000 

 feet in height was composed wholly of dull-red debris, with very few 

 bluffs. Here appeared some of the finest mountain-forms any of us had 

 ever seen. From our distance, which was several miles, the individual 

 stones were all lost to the eye, and the slopes appeared as if they were 

 made of red sand, but of course having the forms which naturally result 

 from coarse, debris. The tops of the ridges were nowhere jagged, but 

 were invariably formed of gracefully-flowing curves, while mountain- 

 lines could scarcely be more beautiful than the magnificent sweeps of 

 the curves formed by the long debris slides. Except on the south and 

 west sides of station 12, these curves were nowhere broken by any con- 

 siderable bluffs. Having reached this station early in the morning, we 

 were not troubled with storms during our work. 



Several large silver-bearing veins crossing the ridge near this station 

 gave us the first intimation of onr approach to the mining region. We 

 descended to camp, which we found just at the base of the peak, 

 and arrived quite early in the afternoon. The next day, Augu,st 14, 

 we moved up stream, leaving directions with the packers where to make 

 camp. We rode up a small creek coming in from the south, which 

 drains the basin between station ] 3 and Handle's Peak. The ground 

 most of the way was very miry, and the brush and timber very difficult 

 to pass through. After passing the timber-line, the only difficulties in 

 our way were the boggy ground and rocks. One or two very steep 

 slopes, along which we had to ride, were very disagreeable; but much 

 less so Ibr us than for the poor donkeys. At an elevation of nearly 

 13,000 feet we found a grassy patch of ground, which was large enough 

 and level enough for our mules to stand on without much danger. Hav- 

 ing secured them to the rocks, we climbed up the peak, which we found 

 a very easy matter, as the total rise was scarcely a thousand feet and 

 the slope quite gentle. A short distance below this summit, at an eleva- 

 tion of about 13,500 feet, we found some shallow prospect-holes sunk 



