The Mt. Ritter Knapsack Trip. 



297 



from where we entered the cirque the upper slope of the 

 range bordering the east side of the San Joaquin Canon 

 looked like the snow-clad roof of a giant's house.. The 

 slope leading from Ritter down into the cirque is trough- 

 like and is twice broken by transverse ledges which 

 extend part of the way across and which undoubtedly 

 indicate the location of dikes. 



To avoid losing the elevation we had already made we 

 kept at a high contour on the north side of the cirque 

 and gained the first of the two ledges above mentioned. 

 From here we struck straight up the snowfield to the 

 second ledge. This snow steep was of unusual diffi- 

 culty, each pit merging into the one next below, until 

 the surface became a succession of gutters approaching 

 two feet in depth, with knife-like ridges between. To 

 add to the difficulty, being on the west side of the 

 mountain, until after midday the snow remained frozen 

 as hard as ice. 



We gathered on the second ledge and scanned the 

 mountain wall, which surrounded the head of the snow- 

 field, for a vulnerable point of attack. On our right the 

 snow seemed to extend well up to the top of the ridge, 

 but the way looked long and toilsome. Directly in front, 

 not more than two hundred yards away, the snow ended 

 and the rock crags rose nearly perpendicularly. Ordi- 

 narily we should have shunned such crags, but they 

 "looked good" to us just then after the terrific work on 

 the snow. A series of chimneys which split the crags 

 made the prospect doubly alluring. 



As the snow steep which lay between was extra haz- 

 ardous, before taking the whole party up, our leader, 

 followed by two others at distances apart, made an 

 exploring trip. But the chimneys beat them back with 

 the loss of nearly two hours, and we were forced to try 

 the snowfield again. Steps were cut across the snow 

 steep to some crags on the south, up which we climbed 

 by some hand-over-hand work to the ridge which led 



