20 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



for which many set bHthely forth and which some accompHshed ; 

 but all returned with accounts of a mighty torrent which 

 couldn't be forded and a raging bear which might have been 

 dangerous had not some thoughtful rangers staked it securely 

 to a tree! The Red Kaweah, close at hand and command- 

 ing, lured many to its summit, to be rewarded by a most 

 extensive panorama of canons and ranges, lakes and distant 

 peaks. 



A number of knapsack parties set out from Moraine Lake, 

 all bound by slightly different paths, up to the head of the 

 arroyo, over Triple Peak Divide into the Kern-Kaweah, and 

 so down to the main Kern Canon. The stay-at-homes watched 

 them depart, accoutered for the trail and filled with eager antici- 

 pations, and remained to wonder at the happy efficiency of the 

 Outing Committee that could make such things possible. 



More and more do two things stand out in retrospect. One is 

 the unique ability which so managed it that two hundred people 

 could be taken out into the very wilderness and cared for, bag 

 and baggage, in comfort and in plenty, that discipline could be 

 maintained without restraint, and freedom and provision be 

 accorded alike to the mountain-climber, the knapsacker, the 

 seasoned "hiker," and the tenderfoot. The other is the won- 

 derful esprit-de-corps that animated all those people and made 

 each feel in some subtle yet potent way that in the happiness of 

 all lay his own best wish. Not once in all the four weeks was 

 the voice of the grumbler heard, while a dozen times a day 

 were there proofs of kindliness and comradeship on every 

 hand. 



Then came the day when we were due to leave the plateau. 

 With a last look at the peaks reflected in the lake and a last 

 glimpse of the meadows, silver-spangled with the morning 

 dew, we descended again to the canon. Eight or nine miles 

 of the most beautiful portion of the Kern were before us. 

 The walls here are quite yosemite-like in their grandeur. Great 

 cliffs of stone rose in some places three or four thousand feet 

 above us ; the sky-line was broken into domes and spires, with 

 here and there a wild side-cafion dashing its stream in cataracts 

 toward the main chasm. And always the Kern River itself, 

 boiling, foaming, rushing precipitately down the canon, singing 



