i8o 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



sight of the deep chasm of the glacier nor failing to give 

 us the wide, distant panorama that the rest of the forest 

 trail had denied us. 



Camp lay just below timberline on a sloping bench 

 south of the Chocolate Glacier. A thick growth of alpine 

 firs and hemlocks screened us from the cold winds that 

 blew off the snow-fields and furnished abundant boughs 

 for most luxurious beds. The official party had left a 

 liberal cache of provisions ; but fearing the inroads of the 

 Douglas squirrels, and not knowing whether the wild 

 goats were as catholic in their tastes as their domesticated 

 brethren, likewise having heard much comment concern- 

 ing an alleged diet of soup endured by our predecessors, 

 we had taken the precaution of bringing along a few extra 

 dainties of our own. So an afternoon tea of canned 

 tomatoes and blackberries made a pleasant introduction to 

 a supper of soup and chocolate, while a can of pineapple 

 added piquancy to the usual daybreak breakfast of soup, 

 beans and hardtack. 



Before the light had faded from the distant mountains 

 we were in our sleeping bags. At three o'clock when we 

 reluctantly left them again to prepare breakfast the moon 

 was shining over a drift of fog that had entirely filled the 

 Suiattle Canon, a gleaming, silvery mass, most beautiful 

 to look upon but auguring ill for the climb. 



At four o'clock, when we started, the atmosphere about 

 us was fairly clear, but as the light grew and we climbed 

 higher, past the struggling timberline trees to the crest of 

 a pumice ridge, the clouds drew in upon us ever closer and 

 closer. For an hour we walked through a fog so dense 

 that we could scarcely see the tiny, struggling pussy's- 

 paws and dwarf lupines at our feet, and so cold that the 

 moistened tendrils of hair above our ears froze. 



A little after sunrise, however, the mists seemed to be 

 torn apart and we could see the blue sky and far, far above 

 us, the white summit of the mountain. From that time 

 onward the clouds all lay below us, a creamy white, billow- 

 ing sea faintly shadowed with palest opaline tints, rose, 



