i6o 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



Sierra Club." The afternoon was spent in the same convey- 

 ances, en route for Pine Canon. There we found all that was 

 necessary for the comfort of our first night's camp. 



Dreadful prognostications had made Kearsarge Pass all but 

 insurmountable, for Kearsarge Pass is 11,823 f^^t above 

 sea level and it is not usual the first day to climb so high, 

 the elevation of our camp being about 6,000 feet. We had 

 been awed to an early sleeping-bag, so we had to forego 

 the pleasures of a sapphire twilight and of a starry sky. But 

 the morrow had not half the terrors and drawbacks that we had 

 been led to expect. Every quadruped in Inyo County capable 

 of bearing a saddle had been pressed into service for the day's 

 climb. The cavalcade which left Pine Canon on that first 

 morning of real exertion seemed to be interminable. 



The view from Kearsarge Pass is justly one of the most 

 renowned in the Sierra. To the east lay Owen's Valley and 

 Independence, now grown very tiny. Prominent on the west- 

 ern horizon were North Guard, Mt. Brewer and South Guard. 

 Peering out behind Table Mountain we could see just a corner 

 of Milestone. This glimpse of an old friend furnished occa- 

 sion for reminiscence of the previous summer's outing when the 

 Club was on the other side of the Kings-Kern Divide. Close 

 at hand were the Kearsarge Pinnacles and the Kearsarge 

 Lakes, stretching on down to Bullfrog Lake, or, as it is some- 

 times called, Lake Bryanthus. Passing these we descended 

 into the canon of Bubb's Creek to our second night's camp 

 at the base of the East Vidette. 



To me there has always been something surpassingly pre- 

 cious about the first two or three nights in the mountains. Just 

 as the poet used to comfort his fretful child by taking him to 

 see the stars, so are we, children of this busy world, comforted 

 by the lustre of these clear Sierran nights. 



The more restless and strenuous were not willing to leave 

 unseen the view from University Peak, 13,000 feet, or the 

 shores of Vidette Lakes, about 11,000 feet above the level of 

 the sea. But the busiest preparations had for their object the 

 Rae Lake knapsack trip. While the main party was to descend 

 into Kings Cafion by the Bubb's Creek trail, more seasoned 

 adventurers were weighing and discarding until they got their 



