First Ascent: Mt. Humphreys. 169 



a few others which appeared, and by hugging the rock 

 very closely, the pinnacle was finally reached. Above this 

 the inclination of the wall was not so great, and to the 

 left there ran up a number of little parallel chimneys 

 caused by the breaking out of the blocks along the 

 cleavage-planes; but each chimney at some point was 

 blocked with a large cube which had not yet been fully 

 dislodged. It was possible, however, to work from one 

 chimney to another, and thus avoid the obstructions in 

 each move from chimney to chimney, gaining ten or 

 twenty feet in altitude. Presently, after a climb of about 

 two hundred feet from where I had left the others, I 

 reached the knife-edge of the buttress of which I have 

 already spoken. The summit of the mountain was only 

 about twenty feet above this and the way was clear. I 

 then searched around for a better way of ascent. The 

 western wall of the buttress was a sheer drop over five 

 hundred feet to a shelf, and from the shelf there was still 

 another drop to the talus slope. The south side of the 

 buttress was a mere knife-edge, notched throughout with 

 sharp pinnacles. I returned to the eastern side and ex- 

 amined all the little chimneys running down there. All 

 of them before reaching the bottom of the gorge ended, 

 leaving a smooth cliff thirty or forty feet in height. 



I returned through the little chimneys by which I had 

 ascended as far down as I could, reaching a point where 

 the wall below the chimney was more inclined than below 

 the other chimneys, and where it was also more broken. 

 At this point the rope was thrown up to me. I made it 

 fast around a projecting rock, and with its aid my brother 

 hauled himself up to my position. We then lowered the 

 rope again for the others to follow, but they — the married 



