First Ascent: Mt. Humphreys. 



171 



sixteen miles distant. Ov/en's Valley is laid out in square 

 farms like a checkerboard, and for miles and miles the 

 green alfalfa-fields gave life to what would otherwise have 

 been an almost lifeless scene. To the southward we 

 could see the rugged line of the Palisades. Far below us, 

 both north and south, forming part of the main crest, 

 were several mesas, or tablelands, probably remnants of 

 the old base-level through which the knife-edge and saw- 

 teeth of Humphreys had cut their way. 



The summit of Humphreys is not more than eight feet 

 square and contains the same parallel lines of cleavage 

 which I have referred to as existing in the gorge. It 

 is one mass of cracked and broken blocks, thrown loosely 

 together in such a way as to warn one to move cautiously 

 lest the whole top should break off and fall into the great 

 abyss to the eastward. While my brother built a cairn 

 as a last resting-place for our Sierra Club register, I 

 examined very carefully all about the summit for a 

 possible way of ascent other than that by which we had 

 come. The north side was almost sheer for five hundred 

 feet down to the peak on which Le Conte and Cory 

 had climbed. The whole western side was a series of 

 precipices and shelves down to the talus slope, and then 

 on down at a gradual angle to the granite basin. The 

 southern wall, as I have already said, dropped at least 

 a thousand feet to the knife-edge of the main ridge, which 

 then extended on downwards until it connected with Mt. 

 Emerson, near Piute Pass. The drop on the east was the 

 worst of all. 



There were no signs of any one having been on the 

 summit of the peak before. Probably no one had ever 

 stood where we then were, unless perhaps during the 



