On the Trail with the Sierra Club. 57 



ries. The trail crosses the divide at a point known as 

 Coyote Pass. Here a titanic art-gallery of Nature's own 

 making contains a varied assortment of fantastic sculp- 

 tures. Sun, wind, frost, and rain have carved the coarse 

 granite into chimerical forms that excite and haunt the 

 imagination. Now began the descent into the canon 

 along the gorge of Coyote Creek. At lower and lower 

 levels we doubled our zigzag trail on the steep canon 

 wall. Waterfalls hung among openings in the trees. 

 Instead of the expected camp, every turn brought 

 glimpses of greater depths and more feathery pine-tops. 

 Indeed, the trees seemed the only evidence that we were 

 not headed directly for the center of the earth. Early 

 in the afternoon most of the party had reached the floor 

 of the Kern River Canon and the site of our permanent 

 camp. Since leaving the art-gallery we had descended 

 nearly a mile by vertical measurement, and still we were 

 more than six thousand feet above sea-level. In honor 

 of Mr. Warren Olney, one of the pioneers of the Sierra 

 Club, our mountain home was named " Camp Olney." 

 An open stand of beautiful conifers, not least among them 

 the stately sugar-pine, filtered the sunshine and softened 

 the night. Coyote Creek, a cold, pure, alder-screened 

 mountain stream, unfatigued by two wild leaps over 

 canon walls, raced through the middle of our camp and 

 joined the brimming Kern a few hundred yards below. 

 In the daytime it filled our cups with a beverage that 

 put to shame the " blushing goblet," though " filled with 

 the nectar that Jupiter sips," and at night, together with 

 the Kern, it made the hours of slumber vocal with lulla- 

 bies such as only Sierra waters know how to sing. For 

 those who desired a little variation in their potations 



