i8o Sierra Club Bulletin. 



the wind cuts like a sand-blast into the congealed mass 

 within until the interior is free from snow again. At the 

 same time a hanging bottom placed a few inches below 

 the chamber protects the instruments from the reflection 

 of the sun upward from the rocks and from the possible 

 effects of nocturnal radiation. The shelter is also so 

 small that its parts can readily be carried on the backs 

 of mountaineers to otherwise inaccessible peaks. 



Dear to the hearts of Sierra Club members with an 

 aching for winter mountaineering must needs be the 

 experience of the volunteers who made the ascent during 

 that first winter. A regular schedule was maintained 

 irrespective of, and sometimes with disrespect to, the 

 weather, and lurid were the tales brought back by the 

 men who were having their initiation into the mysteries 

 of the moods of Mt. Rose in winter. So large has the 

 body of tradition grown that Professor Seward, of Stan 

 ford, who has made the trip in order not to be unusual, 

 facetiously proposes to collate the material into a "First 

 Year with Mt. Rose" before the vividness of the experi- 

 ences and the vigor of the tales have dulled. 



Only a fact or two can be touched upon here. An 

 average winter trip required from a day and a half to 

 two days and a half from Reno, while from the head- 

 quarters ranch at the eastern base of the mountain, where 

 the ascent began, a winter day was all too short for the 

 trip on snowshoes. Sleeping-bags and an ax, with a 

 few provisions, were accordingly hung in an alpine pine 

 at timber-line, and here, at 9,000 feet, from February 

 until June, the parties spent the night on their way to 

 the summit. 



On the summit itself there was no protection of any 

 kind except the lee of the monument, where, buffeted by 

 gales and blizzards, bending like a brooding hen over 

 the instruments to protect record-sheet and pen from the 

 storm, the observers faithfully performed their task. 

 Only twice did they fail. In April Professor Johnson 

 and Dr. Rudolph spent the night at timber-line in a pit 



