The San Francisco Peaks in April. iii 



laden air invigorated me, and with every deep inspiration 

 I drank in happiness and delight. 



While thickly timbered for the most part, the way 

 up the flank of the mountain was not impeded by under- 

 brush, and traveling was easy. Approaching deep snow, 

 I picked open spaces where the sun had solidified and 

 hardened it, and so found good footing. I looked for 

 deer and grouse, but saw none, and observed only the 

 tracks of wild turkeys, which were evidently in goodly 

 force about the mountain. 



Nearing timber-line the trees were gnarled and 

 stunted, mostly mountain pine and juniper. TraveHng 

 slowly, I began to feel some fatigue as I passed the last 

 trees on the rocky spur I was surmounting. The broken 

 rock of the open became more tedious and difficult and 

 the rarity of the air oppressive, so that I proceeded short 

 distances with frequent rests between, and at 10:30 took 

 my first luncheon, on a large rock, from which I over- 

 looked the wide-spread view to the westward. The dark 

 green forests of Coconino County extended far as the eye 

 could see, streaked with desert spaces and dotted here 

 and there with hills and buttes. Mt. Bill WiUiams was 

 the most prominent landmark, and he should have been 

 a most worthy character to have had so noble a memorial. 

 But I disliked to anticipate the pleasures awaiting me at 

 the summit, so on I went slowly and more slowly, until 

 at last, about 1 1 130, I stood on the mountain's crest, thir- 

 teen thousand feet above sea-level, on a finial point of the 

 continental divide. Words fail me to describe the gran- 

 deur and magnificence of the outlook and the depth of my 

 feelings, moved by the thrill of conquest and by the de- 

 light of the nature-lover in the sublime vista before me. 



