62 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



camping-ground on Crabtree Meadows. To-morrow, 

 Mt. Whitney! 



A quintet of adventurous spirits started soon after 

 I o'clock in the morning, hoping to reach the top by 

 sunrise. Unfortunately the distance of the camp from 

 the base involved loss of time in picking the trail where 

 it led over streams and meadows. Silently we filed on 

 through the night, the leaders changing places occasion- 

 ally to take turns in picking the trail. Even at that early 

 hour the titanic character of our surroundings was mani- 

 fest ; the deep glaciated gorge, mountainous boulders, the 

 dark depths of Guitar Lake, near where Professor Lang- 

 ley made his famous investigation of the color of the 

 sun, and on our left rose the majestic granite hulk of Mt. 

 ¥/hitney. On its shoulder sparkled the diadem of the 

 Pleiades, displaying a dozen or more brilliants where 

 ordinarily but six are dimly visible. Over all brooded 

 a silence so profound that it seemed as if a bit of eternity 

 had been slipped into the place of one of our noisy days. 

 An easy climb brought us to the " chimney," — a rift in a 

 five-hundred- foot precipice. This part of the climb called 

 for caution and skill. To start a loose rock was to 

 jeopardize the lives of climbers beneath. The " chimney " 

 surmounted, there was a steady, but comparatively easy, 

 climb of fifteen hundred feet to the summit. When we 

 were halfway up the mountain-side the rising sun threw 

 the shadow of Whitney westward over the cul-de-sac of 

 a valley we had just left and bathed in rosy light the 

 wilderness of snow-ribbed summits to the north and 

 west. To convey an impression of the phenomenon is 

 beyond the power of language. Far down at the ap- 

 proach to the " chimney " 'the main party, under the 



