With the Sierra Club in the Kern Canon. 31 



Following a climb of so many varied emotions, the 

 ascent of Whitney came to many almost as an anticlimax. 

 Whitney is easily accessible to all whose heart and lungs 

 can stand its rarified atmosphere, and probably no other 

 mountain in the world unascended by a railway can 

 boast such an enrollment of visitors. Five years ago 150 

 members of the Sierra Club registered there; this year 

 fully 100 added their names to its list. 



Starting from the main camp on the morning of July 

 14th, we journeyed up the Kern as far as Junction Mead- 

 ows, the first night's camp. It was a perfect day. Exquisite 

 little meadows, full of flowers, here and there invaded 

 the groves of tall pines, of firs, and of libocedrus that 

 filled the floor of the canon in its more fertile reaches ; 

 sandy flats, forested by junipers, ragged, bent, twisted, 

 incredibly old, contrasted strangely with the verdant 

 meadows ; lofty cliffs of wonderful sculpture and coloring 

 towered above us close on either hand; and always our 

 course lay near the shining river which now leapt and 

 flashed over a rocky bed in the sunlight, now swept in 

 wide curves under the green gloom of the cottonwoods. 



A steep climb up the cafion wall next morning made a 

 short cut to Crabtree Meadows, the base-camp for the 

 Whitney climb. This short cut was only discovered after 

 considerable exploration by one member of our party 

 and should be definitely marked for the use of pedestrians, 

 as it is five or six miles shorter than the horse trail. 



The Whitney climb, while uneventful, was very suc- 

 cessful; and those who enjoyed the unrivalled view from 

 the summit, the endless chain of peaks and the wonderful 

 sight of the Inyo Desert lying over ten thousand feet 

 below returned full of enthusiasm. 



A few days later we broke camp at the Big Arroyo to 

 start on the homeward trail. The story of the knapsack 

 parties which cut across country to the Giant Forest 

 is told elsewhere; the main party journeyed with the 

 packtrain by way of Coyote Creek and Farewell Gap. 

 Bullion Flat, remembered by those of us who visited 



