V 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



Vol. V. San Francisco, January, 1905. No. 3. 



FIRST ASCENT: MT. HUMPHREYS. 



By J. S. Hutchinson, Jr. 



Untrodden summits in the Sierra are now very scarce, 

 and the sight of one gives every mountain-climber a thrill 

 of excitement such as comes from no other source. It 

 was such a feeling that came to me in midsummer, 1903, 

 when with Messrs. J. N. Le Conte and J. K. Moffitt, 

 on the North Palisade, we looked far to the northwest 

 across the Goddard Divide and saw looming in the dis- 

 tance, entirely isolated, the rugged, spiry, and unsealed 

 summit of Mt. Humphreys, its eastern and western sides 

 falling in precipices and steep slopes until hidden by the 

 intervening ridge ; its whole aspect one of defiance. The 

 fascination of that mountain increased as Mr. Le Conte 

 told us of the attempt which he and Mr. Cory made to 

 reach its summit in 1898.* 



Nor was it the unsealed summit of Mt. Humphreys 

 alone that attracted us. We were looking into a rough 

 and rugged wilderness of peaks which " may well be 

 called the heart of the High Sierra," where " the 

 peculiarly savage type of High Sierra scenery seems to 

 reach its culmination,"* " the finest portion of the crest 



♦ See Mr. J. N. Le Conte's article, " The Basin of the South Fork of 

 the San Joaquin River," Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. II, p. 249. 



