up from "The Land of Little Rain." 115 



So steep was the slope and so deep the snow that we 

 often clambered over huge boulders whose height and 

 depth were so concealed that we did not realize their 

 size until the yielding snow let us slip back down their 

 faces. Marsh had preceded me some little distance. 

 When we were well up the knife-edge, I suddenly saw 

 him standing in a tiny gateway of reddish brown rock 

 to which a narrow path of steeply slanting snow afforded 

 the only approach. This was the notorious slide to Con- 

 sultation Lake which Marsh had feared. By hugging 

 the wall and carefully tilting the inner snowshoe to work 

 it through the narrow space left between my outer leg 

 and the wall, I soon succeeded in gaining a place by 

 Marsh's side in the pass. The barometer gave us the 

 welcome information that we had attained the altitude of 

 12,950 feet, or only 1500 feet less than that of the summit 

 which we sought. 



To the westward, deep, deep below us, and extending, 

 it seemed, almost across the State of California were 

 frozen lakes, pinnacled mountains, and valleys, bare and 

 desolate in the foreground and wooded in the distance — 

 the whole one vast snowy panorama. 



At our feet was a vast depression circling the Saw 

 Tooth Crags and Mount Whitney, on whose flanks we 

 stood. At the southern end of it lay the frozen Cotton- 

 wood Lakes, at the other Langley's Lake, near which 

 passes the trail from Fresno to the foot of the Devil's Lad- 

 der, the only natural means of access to the summit of 

 Mount Whitney. Our route lay along the western side of 

 the Saw Tooth Crags where a ledge along the cliffs af- 

 forded scanty room for the Lone Pine trail to reach the 

 head of the Devil's Ladder, where it joins the Fresno trail 

 to the summit. 



The field of snow below the pass slanted dangerously 

 downward to the Cottonwood Lakes, but, trusting too 

 much in our morning experience, we started to stamp 

 our way across it. This time there was a strong crust 

 below the drift snow, and our first plunge started ominous 



