300 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



die slid off and rolled and bumped down to the snow 

 below. 



We worked on through the afternoon. Then the 

 sunlight failed and the stars came out. We were not 

 half-way up the slide, although we had worked unceas- 

 ingly since i :20 p. m. 



About midnight the moon slid into the gap above, 

 and we worked on surrounded by the pinnacles shining 

 with added solemnity and grandeur in the moonlight. 

 It was very cold by this time, and the shale, frozen by 

 the trickling water from the everlasting snows above, 

 held more firmly than it had during the day. It did not 

 slide in small avalanches so frequently, and fewer rocks 

 came down. The animals were so weary — they had had 

 no rest, food, or water since morning — that they were 

 perfectly tractable and quiet both in the shadows and the 

 moonlight of the canon. I doubt that we could have 

 succeeded in taking them up during the day, but at night 

 they would sleep standing, as we worked at the trail. 



About one hundred yards from the top we struck 

 quite solid rock on one side ; on the other sheer cliff ; in 

 the center solid ice, which we simply could not work with 

 our pick and spade. So we went at the rocks and occa- 

 sionally turned up pieces the size of small trunks. We 

 had removed all packs and propped them along the trail 

 as we moved up. One pack had been placed under the 

 nose of an old horse who was dozing peacefully in the 

 moonlight, when a descending boulder, loosened in our 

 trail-making, bounded accurately under his chin and 

 carried away a kyack to the snow-field in the glimmering 

 distance below. Hop-skip, down it went, the amphi- 

 theater announcing in ecfioes its downward journey and 



