From Kern Canon to Giant Forest. loi 



Le Conte and Guyot. Above our heads as we trudged 

 along towered the jagged pinnacles of Mount Needham 

 and Saw Tooth Peak, which, mantled in black storm clouds 

 and most marvelously gilded by the setting sun, we had 

 seen on the night of our camp at the foot of the Red 

 Kaweah. 



The head of the canon is boxed in by a steep rise of five 

 hundred feet. Surmounting this, we stood upon Black 

 Rock Pass. The panorama that greets the eye is superb 

 and varied, especially from the ridge just to the north. 

 Beyond the barriers that rise northward nearly a thou- 

 sand feet above the pass lie the Five Lakes, thrice re- 

 peated, and beyond them, across the Big Arroyo, the twin 

 clusters of the Kaweahs and the ruddy ridge of Red 

 Spur. To the east, at our feet, lay the exquisite little 

 meadows and woodland of Lost Cafion, the abode of the 

 tripping deer and the shambling porcupine, and to the 

 west the valley of Cliff Creek and the watershed of the 

 Middle Fork of the Kaweah. Southward the view was 

 shut in by Needham and the sharp peak of Saw Tooth, in 

 whose shadow, cradled on the top of the pass, barely 

 removed enough to prevent its slipping over the ridge, 

 lies Columbine, a gem of mountain lakelets. Like a circle 

 of spears on all sides rise pinnacles of ragged rock which, 

 reflected from its surface, contrast strongly with the 

 mantle of snow which dips beneath its azure waters. A 

 solitude of rock and water and snow and sky it seems, 

 yet from the rock sounds the cheery whistle of the mar- 

 mot, from the sky the twitter of the leucosticte [rosy 

 finch] and, snuggling close to the snow in a sheltered 

 sunny nook, the mountain daisy blooms. 



Four or five other lakes nestle in little basins just below 

 the pass. Lying at dif¥erent levels the higher cascade 

 into the lower over precipices or rounded bosses of rock 

 that make difficult going for foot-folk and are quite 

 impassable for pack-animals. The bones of a couple of 

 animals bleaching on the upper ledges sufficiently attested 

 that some one had come to grief there, unnecessarily so. 



