The Ascent of the North Palisades. 7 



trip. These were cut down to the last extremity. An 

 eider-down quilt apiece, a compact 4x5 camera with 

 eighteen plates, a very light plane-table, weighing not 

 more than a couple of pounds, two Sierra Club register- 

 boxes, a small pot and frying-pan for a kitchen outfit, 

 four spoons and four tin cups for a dining-room set, and 

 a rather small three days' allowance of food. After all 

 things were divided up no pack seemed to weigh more 

 than twenty-five pounds. The party consisted of Messrs. 

 Mofiitt, Hutchinson, Robert Pike, and myself. Mrs. 

 Le Conte and John were to keep camp till our return. 



At break of day the indefatigable Mofiitt was astir 

 and getting breakfast before the rest of us could even get 

 our shoes on. By 5 130 everything was packed and we 

 were off. Mrs. Le Conte and John accompanied us to 

 a sheep pass over the north wall of the lake basin, and 

 one of our jacks, Spotty," carried our packs for that 

 distance without difiiculty. Here the knapsacks were 

 adjusted to our own backs for the rest of the trip, and 

 we struck out north, while the others returned with 

 " Spotty " to camp. The descent from the sheep pass 

 was into the basin of a tributary of Cartridge Creek which 

 enters the main stream from the north just below Triple 

 Falls. First it was over hard-frozen snowfields, and then 

 over huge granite fragments to the margin of a lonely 

 lake. This, from its shape, we called Dumb-bell Lake, 

 and made our way around its eastern end, over talus 

 slopes, and then across the complicated topography of the 

 basin toward another pass which could be seen on the di- 

 vide to the north. In the course of a couple of hours the 

 crest of this was reached by a gradual ascent from the 

 south, but on the north it broke away in steep chutes 



