61 



will try to repeat tbe ascent ; still, some brief recital of our experience 

 may not be without its value. 



There is a broad valley, carrying a very heavy creek, which runs di- 

 rectly down from the main peak, a little east of north, to nearly the site 

 of the camp at which my letter was began. This valley was formerly the 

 bed of a glacier, and its bottoms and itssiiles.up to a thousand feet or more 

 above the bottom, are rounded and scored by the action of the ice. Per- 

 haps there is not in our whole country such an exhibition of what the 

 French call roohes nioutoiou'cs, or •• slice]) backed rocks," that look in the 

 distance, namely, like a tlock of enormous sheep lying down in a pas- 

 ture. As an example of this particular kind of glacial action, our trip 

 certainly has furnished nothing to compare witli it, even distantly. 

 Take such a valley, with the sheep-backs rising anywhere from ten to 

 fifty feet over it, or broken ridges that afford no continuous pathway, 

 and with the interstices tilled with fallen timber, and you will readily 

 perceive that traveling in it is no pastime: yet all attempts to scale the 

 mountain must stand in some relation to this valley, and that although 

 the ridge on neither side reaches the peak without a deep hollow inter- 

 vening. 



Well, our attempt was made up the western ridge. It was not hard 

 to ascend from the creek valley to the edge of the ridge, bin there the 

 fallen timber grew worse and worse, and twice the train was turned 

 back, on both arms of the ridge, and had to camp at evening at hardly 

 two hours' distance from the starting point. A lighter party next day, 

 well armed with axes, cut their way through, and reached tirst a high 

 point at the edge of the ridge, 1,350 feet above the valley, and com- 

 manding a splendid view both of it. with its glacial phenomena, and of 

 the peak beyond; how splendid, Mr. .Jackson's photographs, taken from 

 the spot, will by and by show. Two courses were DOW open ; one, to 

 plunge into the valley and work up it as far as possible below ; the other, 

 to labor along the vd^v to a point nearly opposite the peak, and try to 

 get down there. It was. perhaps, one of those cases where, whichever 

 alternative one takes, he will be sorry not to have taken the other; at 

 any rate, we took, after careful consideration, the lirst, and would advise 

 any other party by all means to try the second, which is probably prac- 

 ticable. For the plunge was a long and severe one, and, with our ut- 

 most efforts, we could get but a mile up through the valley, leaving two 

 hours and a half of hard scrambling between our final camp ana the 

 bottom ot the peak, with the heavy geodetic and photographic appa- 

 ratus to carry. Nor was the food for the animals Sufficiently abundant 

 and nutritious below. 



Next day, setting out soon after daybreak, the ascent was attempted 

 by two parties; the photographic climbing to the end of the southern 

 ridge, as being 500 feet lower, and otherwise more easily accessible, and 

 as including the peak itself in the panorama. Unfortunately, the 

 weather was not propitious* A showery afternoon the day before had 

 ended in a rainy night ; and though the clouds broke in the morning, 

 yet the Hying mist hung about the high summits all day long, obscuring 

 the view. Both parties were compelled, instead of returning to camp, 

 to do the best they could at timber-line, with no wraps, and only the 

 lunch they had taken in their pockets, and to finish their work on the 

 following morning. Fortunately the night was neither windy nor cold ; 

 but thirty hours on no provisions but a pocket-lunch are pretty hard 

 upon men, some of whom have done 5.000 feet of climbing with thirty 

 or forty pounds of instruments on their backs. 



The following day was a fine one here, although the horizon was much 



