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Sien'a Club Bulletin 



beyond, where we dismounted, tethering our horses by long 

 lariats, relieving them of saddle and bridle so they could graze. 

 Mr. J. and Mr. S., taking off their coats, threw them down on 

 the saddles. Cutting great canes to assist us, we started upon 

 the Mono Trail, traversed occasionally by Indians. [Note i.] 

 For a while it led up the valley through open plots of grass and 

 between hugh masses of rock in the deep dark forest. We sud- 

 denly turned sharply off to the left, up the mountain, where at 

 once we began to climb the steep ascents following the dim 

 trail of the Indians. It was a work of incredible difficulty to 

 creep and clamber up the mountain side. In very many places 

 we had to climb over the smooth rock for a great distance 

 where the slightest slip of hand or foot would have precipitated 

 one into a horrible abyss. After going on about two hours we 

 came to a place where the trail turned off to the left, winding 

 around to a cafion, up which it wended to the mountain sum- 

 mit. 



"Here we halted and held counsel with each other. Our 

 canon lay off to our right. Above us the summit of the moun- 

 tain, the slope of which reaching downward was impassable 

 from the smooth rock that formed it. Breaking above us it 

 exhibited an overhanging surface barring our progress in an 

 upward direction. Below us and from a line parallel and ex- 

 tending from our position to our right as far as the cation, the 

 mountain swept smooth and precipitously down to the base, 

 leaving a bushy, briary space between which it might or might 

 not be practicable for us to reach the cafion to our right. We 

 rested ourselves a while and then summoning all our energies 

 we struggled frantically over the debris of granite and through 

 dead Hmbs of trees on the verge of the precipice, watchful, 

 half exhausted and yet determined to achieve our project if at 

 all feasible. A long, long and most exciting and fearful strug- 

 gle we had of it, exploring and fighting a passage over almost 

 impassable rocks and through thickets, where we were torn by 



[Note I. — The Mono Trail to which reference is made must have been an old 

 Indian trail ascending the west wall of Tenaya Canon between the present Tenaya 

 zigzags and Snow Creek. Mr. Fiske, the pioneer photographer of Yosemite, on 

 being questioned on this subject, says that the Mono Indians had often mentioned 

 the fact that such a trail existed, and that it was in fact their usual route to the 

 valley from the east. Mr. A. C. Pillsbury has made the trip up Snow Creek canon 

 and reports remnants of an old trail there even at the present date. When the pres- 

 ent Tenaya Trail was built no indications of an Indian trail were found along that 

 route. ] 



