THE CLIMB OF DUNDERBERG VIA 

 VIRGINIA CANON 



By George C. Thompson 



THE encampment of the Sierra Club in Tuolumne Mead- 

 ows during July, 191 7, was, from every standpoint, a suc- 

 cess, and from many standpoints an unqualified success. It 

 pursued, in the main, the objects for which the constitution of 

 the club declares we exist. It is a matter of common consent, 

 however, that the side trip, those few days when kindred 

 spirits become knights of the road, is the piece de resistance of 

 the summer outing; for it is then you see the finest views, 

 climb the highest peaks, get the biggest appetite, and catch the 

 most unheard-of trout. It is then, too, that you readily find 

 out what stuff your comrades are made of. 



Last summer's outing can boast of at least two such trips 

 that had the zest of newness and romance, and that, too, within 

 a bow-shot — of course I mean a Sierra bow-shot — of the Soda 

 Springs. They were the trip to the Ten Lakes Basin, and the 

 climb of Dunderberg via Virginia Canon. The first, Ten Lakes 

 Basin, does not come within the scope of this article. The 

 five-day Dunderberg trip, however, I shall attempt to describe 

 briefly, having been in the thick of it as a fly-caster and hum- 

 ble member of the commissary. 



When it became noised along the rocky slopes of Parsons 

 Ridge, I almost said Parnassus Ridge, that a five-day trip was 

 being planned to explore Virginia Canon, climb the forbidding 

 pile of frowning rock, properly known as Thunder Mountain, 

 that stands sentinel over the desert, and return cross country 

 via Young Lake and Mount Conness, there was unusual stir 

 and excitement. And when it became farther known that that 

 intrepid and insatiable mountaineer, Walter Huber, was to be 

 commander-in-chief of the expedition, and that he was to be 

 assisted by Mrs. Parsons, it was soon a question whether it 

 would be a side trip or whether we would have to move the en- 

 tire camp. Soda Springs, Toy Gong, Tap, and all, in order to 



