22 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



ardor of the mountaineers was dampened by the only storm 

 encountered during the entire trip. Still a number gained the 

 top of one or another of these peaks and when the party re- 

 joined the main camp at Crabtree Meadows it was with mem- 

 ories of two days of beauty and grandeur in the wild region 

 where they had ventured. 



Throughout the entire trip, the summit of Mount Whitney 

 represented the goal of general ambition. It is but a scant 

 hundred feet or so above a goodly company of mountains, its 

 very supremacy is challenged by the champions of Rainier, but 

 nevertheless, the schoolbook statement that, save for Alaska, 

 Whitney is the highest point in the United States, carries one 

 forward with tremendous eagerness to gain its crest. The 

 morning broke clear and bright, but long before the stars had 

 surrendered, many of us were hurrying toward the camp ket- 

 tles and before five o'clock breakfast was over and we were 

 on our way. 



At first the road lay along the green banks of a gentle stream, 

 then out into the meadows, and gradually up into the rocky 

 amphitheater which marked the base of the real ascent. If 

 one may judge to whom the experience was absolutely new, 

 the climb was easy. The chimney, while steep and slippery 

 from melting snow, presented no real difficulties even to the 

 novice; and once scaled, the way was plain. A rocky, zigzag 

 path, with here and there a snow blanket but knee deep ; a long 

 easy grade over broken boulders, a small stone structure out- 

 lined against the sky ahead, a run towards it on the now level 

 space, and it needed no miniature obelisk to tell us we had 

 arrived. It was a little past eight o'clock, the day was bright 

 and fair, the air cool and bracing. The thermometer on the 

 Government cabin stood just two degrees above freezing. 



A few steps to the eastern edge of the summit and one in- 

 stinctively drew back— the earth seemed to fall away beneath 

 us — and small wonder. From our proud eminence we were 

 staring down fifteen thousand feet upon the Death Valley 

 region which sinks below the level of the sea. 



On every side but this lay a succession of canons and peaks 

 — and gradually rising in a distant glorious ring, came the bil- 

 lowing clouds which in a few hours would shut out the view. 



