The Mt. Ritter Knapsack Trip. 



293 



was difficult in a few places on account of the smooth 

 surface of the glaciated granite, but there is little danger 

 in the climb on either side of the falls. 



From the top of the falls there is an unobstructed out- 

 look down the Merced Valley to a mile or so beyond 

 Lake Washburn, a distance of four or five miles. There 

 was a beautiful view of it as it lay in the full moonlight, 

 and we lingered until the lateness of the night warned 

 us that sleep was needed for the tramp of the morrow. 

 We reluctantly turned from the sparkle of the moonlight 

 on the spray of the falls and were soon buried in sleep 

 beneath the tamarack pines where the camp was made. 



We were awakened along in the morning by the patter 

 of heavy raindrops and there was hasty rising and 

 hurrying about to get things under shelter ; but it proved 

 a false alarm and in a few minutes the moon was shining 

 again. 



We had another glorious view of the Merced Valley 

 as the early morning light crept into it, then shouldered 

 our packs again, turned our faces to the northeast, and 

 followed up to Foerster Creek. Our course lay in this 

 direction for a couple of miles, when we turned to a due 

 east direction. About where our course changed we 

 crossed the Isberg trail at right angles. We might have 

 done so without seeing the trail, if we had not known it 

 should be somewhere about that spot. It is marked by an 

 occasional blaze and a ''duck" monument here and there. 

 Just where we crossed it there lay the half of a mule- 

 shoe, another evidence that man sometimes passed 

 this way. 



Just beyond the Isberg trail we passed on to the snow- 

 fields, which soon became continuous, and for the next 

 three days the greater part of the tramping was over 

 snow. We were climbing all the time, too, and by the 

 middle of the forenoon were so high up that the whole 

 range south of the Merced stood out, — a great semi- 

 circle of snow, beginning with Clark Peak on the west 



