304 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



by the rising moon and driven back into the hollows 

 again, and clouds and snow the whole night through 

 shone in the still, cold radiance of the moonlight. 



Never did mountain climber rise with less enthusiasm 

 to the conquest of a peak than did the last pilgrim next 

 morning. Had there not come, to spur lagging muscles 

 to further achievement, the bitter memory of a morning 

 three years past, when feminine aspirations toward that 

 very mountain were crushed by the stern masculine decree 

 that fair ladies' backs were not fitted to bear burdens, 

 black Ritter, with shame she confesses it, would still be 

 unsealed by her. 



However, she gritted her teeth and shouldered her 

 pack and with the others worked up the cliff that walled 

 our camp on the north to a snowfield which led us to a 

 little glacial lake lying close under the peak of Ritter. 

 Here the packs were cached during a short halt called for 

 the purpose of reconnoitering. Passing the lake on the 

 western side, we climbed to a higher basin to the south, 

 where lay another lake; thence starting up the great 

 snowfield that covered half the mountain-side, we made 

 for a rocky ledge midway between the lake and the 

 threatening cliffs that topped the snowfield. From this 

 place, leaving most of us to rest on the rocks, a scouting 

 party went onward to investigate what chance the cliffs 

 might offer for an ascent. 



Above us the snow, besides being very steep, grew 

 exceedingly hard, for, as we were on the southwestern 

 side of the mountain, the sun had not as yet touched us. 

 We had neither an alpenstock nor an ice-axe in the 

 party; even the hobnails in our shoes were worn rather 

 smooth with the rock-climbing of the last few days, and 

 the frozen surface offered a very precarious foothold. 

 The cliff proved inaccessible and the men who had with 

 such difficulty made their way to its base were now con- 

 fronted with the much graver problem of a return. 

 Indeed, their danger was much greater than we from 



