56 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



made toothsome provision for ravenous appetites. Charles 

 Lamb, with all his fulsome praise of " roast pig," knew 

 nothing half so delicious as a camp-fire supper in the 

 High Sierra after a day of strenuous mountaineering. 

 If anything can bring completer satisfaction amid such 

 conditions than good food and pure water, cooled by 

 mountain snows and aerated in a thousand falls, it is the 

 deathlike slumber that enfolds the tired mountaineer be- 

 fore he is done wondering at the unearthly brilliance of 

 the stars that watch over his bed on the blooming heath. 

 Doubtless it was after his experience in the California 

 mountains that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote " Life is 

 far better than people dream who fall asleep among the 

 chimney-stacks and telegraph wires." 



That night a brisk, cold northeaster, sweeping down 

 on us from Mt. Vandever, tested the thermic qualities of 

 blankets and sleeping-bags. Long ere the sun peered 

 over the granite walls of our dormitory " rosy-fingered 

 Dawn " found us merrily footing the new trail that leads 

 to the top of the Great Western Divide. It was a stiff 

 climb in places, and not without danger for those who 

 were mounted. One popular lady of our party had a 

 narrow escape when her horse slid off the trail. The 

 crest of the ridge afforded a magnificent view. On the 

 east side we caught a first glimpse of the deep pine-clad 

 canon of the Kern ; on the west side, trending southward, 

 another caiion crept away into the mellow haze. Through 

 it were rolling the songful waters of the Little Kern, 

 racing to round the southern end of the Western Divide 

 and join the greater chorus of the Kern. To the north 

 and east the air bristled with bare crags and snowy 

 peaks — ^to most of us a wilderness of unexplored myste- 



