46 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



we were not to be discouraged. That evening a party 

 of ten, including four women, were enrolled for the ex- 

 pedition, and we arranged to leave the main party the 

 next day on their return to the canon of the Kern by the 

 trail down Tyndall Creek. Here we left them, turning 

 up-stream and following Tyndall Valley to the last tim- 

 ber, where we camped on a bleak spot near a small 

 meadow, affording food for our two mules. After a 

 late luncheon, our guide, Gould, led the men to a lake 

 over the ridge back of the camp, where we enjoyed an 

 icy dip and returned to camp. We fortified ourselves that 

 evening with a good meal, in view of the struggle sched- 

 uled for the next day. 



Breakfasting in the dim light of the dawn, we started 

 up Tyndall Valley to the eastward, and a more rugged 

 forbidding region I Ve never seen. Immense boulders 

 lay piled in heaps or scattered about among lesser rocks. 

 There were five miles of this until we reached the moraine 

 bordering the cirque to the eastward of Tyndall and 

 lying at the base of our objective point. Here was con- 

 fusion worse confounded. Broken, sharp-edged granite 

 blocks of immense size heaped up in great masses, some 

 balancing and moving or sliding at the least footfall, 

 made our progress slow and trying. Beyond this and 

 below in the basin lay five beautiful sapphire and tur- 

 quoise lakes, over one of which we crossed on the ice. 

 Next over a snow-field, and we were at the western base 

 of Williamson. We rested for a space and gazed at the 

 work we had before us. The abrupt and frowning 

 mountain-side was carved into chimney after chimney 

 with rugged rock ridges between. There appeared no 

 possible way up; and here the previous party spent five 



