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Sierra Club Bulletin 



reached the saddle 2,000 feet above the Valley floor. To the 

 south stood the spire of Grizzly Point, still 200 feet higher, so 

 we made toward it, and reached the summit without further 

 trouble. This last part is marked by monuments placed, I 

 think, by Chas. A. Bailey about 1890. On the summit is a 

 Sierra Club register box left by Mr. Bailey about 1895, but 

 the cover was gone and no record or paper was in it. 



We descended again to the saddle in the main ridge, and 

 started north along the great spur, or *'hog-back," which joins 

 Half Dome. The traveling was easy enough, only a long pull 

 through sandy soil and scattered brush. A magnificent pano- 

 rama opened out from this unusual point of view, and it be- 

 came finer and finer as we approached the gigantic wall of 

 Half Dome. Just where the ridge abuts against the vertical 

 face of the Dome, its eastern side is formed by a long, smooth 

 slope of granite, the western being a sheer precipice 3,500 feet 

 high. I had often looked at this from Glacier Point, and 

 longed to crawl up this clean slope, and, holding on to the 

 sharply fractured edge, look down upon Mirror Lake almost 

 vertically below. As we approached this granite slope, it 

 proved to be too steep to crawl up, but by working along a 

 ledge or crack for nearly a hundred yards we came to a place 

 where our hopes were realized. We crawled up the rock, 

 grasped the thin edge, and looked down upon the canon two 

 thirds of a mile below. 



Never have I seen such a frightful precipice in all my 

 experience. The edge which my hands grasped was not more 

 than a few inches thick, and below there was nothing, abso- 

 lutely nothing, but air down for 3,500 feet. Even the upper 

 part of the cliff could not be seen, for evidently the rock 

 upon which we were lying overhung the abyss. The sight 

 was too airy to be endured very long, so we crawled back 

 and along the ridge farther, right up against the side of the 

 great Dome. Here, looking back, we could see in profile 

 the rock upon which we had been lying. It was not more than 

 a foot or two thick, and overhung six or seven feet. To any- 

 one who wants the experience of looking over a first-class 

 precipice, without being caged in by gas-pipe railings, I can 

 recommend this place above all others. 



