Mt. Rose Weather Observatory. i8i 



dug in the snow to obtain protection from a gale at the 

 temperature of — 2.5° F., and fought their way to the 

 summit. But so withering was the gale at that altitude, 

 even at midday, that a precipitate retreat was made to 

 avoid freezing. The faces of the climbers showed plainly 

 the punishment received. Three days later the writer 

 attempted to rescue the record just as the storm was 

 passing. He made his way in an impenetrable fog to 

 10,000 feet, when the snow and ice crystals deposited by 

 the storm in a state of unstable equilibrium on crust and 

 trees were hurled by a sudden gale high into the air 

 in a blinding blizzard. During his retreat he wandered 

 into the wildest part of the mountain before he escaped 

 from the skirts of the storm. 



The experience of Captain Robert M. Brambila in 

 March has been repeated but once. During an evening 

 trip to timber-line his legs cramped just as the party was 

 crossing a wind-swept zone, and only by superhuman 

 effort did he force himself upward rod by rod to the 

 sleeping-bags a mile beyond. Though one of the small- 

 est men in the United States military service, he pluckily 

 continued the trip the next morning to the summit. In 

 the exposure of the preceding evening the faces of both 

 members of the party were frostbitten, though they fort- 

 unately escaped without further accident. Though he had 

 served in the Philippines and shared in the relief of Pekin, 

 Captain Brambila declared that he had never been so 

 exhausted in any campaign he had made. 



But this is physical. To the spirit, as it revealed itself 

 at midnight and at noon, at twilight and at dawn, in 

 storm and in calm, in frost-plume and in verdure, the 

 mountain became a wonderland so remote from the ordi- 

 nary experiences of life that the traveler unconsciously 

 deemed that he was entering another world. 



Naturally the project with its various interests made a 

 strong appeal to all who came in touch with it. Plans 

 for wider development grew rapidly. An observatory for 

 the housing of observing parties and for mercurial 



