The 1913 Outing to the Kings River Canon 163 



drying out wet sleeping-bags and wearing apparel. In spite 

 of the rain we started forth on our side-trips in three divisions. 

 The Triple Falls brigade was to stay three nights at the falls 

 on Cartridge Creek, making daily trips to points of interest. 

 Another party went to Marion Lake and crossed into the 

 Palisade Basin and visited Grouse Valley, and a third, the 

 picked mountaineers, attempted the difficult and dangerous 

 climb of the North Palisade (14,254 feet). The first night 

 we all camped together up Cartridge Creek Canon at Triple 

 Falls. Next day we separated to go our various ways. It 

 would take too long to relate the details of the trip to the 

 Palisade Lake Basin, the long snow and ice slide, the mag- 

 nificent storm clouds, the dead tree which we set on fire and 

 which fell in the night among the sleeping bags, the inces- 

 sant rain which at first seemed to succeed in defeating the 

 project of gaining the summit, then the safe ascent of all 

 those who waited over an extra day to try again. 



About this time hearts began to grow heavy, for the end 

 of the outing was drawing near. Only the four days' trip to 

 Shaver was left and the 191 3 outing would be over. These 

 days were unsurpassed in beauty by any other part of the trip. 

 The first night's camp was in Tehipite Valley with its won- 

 derful cliffs and pinnacles and great dome, rising nearly 4,000 

 feet in the air above the floor of the valley. The rain need not 

 be mentioned since everybody but the photographers had 

 grown used to it by this time. While we have always, while 

 travelling in the Sierra, prepared for a passing thunder shower, 

 we never dreamed that it could rain so many days in suc- 

 cession, and at all hours of the day and night. The photo- 

 graphers sat with cameras poised, waiting for the dome to 

 smile through the clouds which enveloped its cap, while the 

 rest of us enjoyed the fleecy bits of cottony whiteness that 

 floated from pinnacle to pinnacle. 



The following day the steep climb out of Tehipite Valley 

 made heavy demands upon suitable adjectives to express the 

 artistic Japanesque effects of odd fir trees, blackly silhouetted 

 against a white background of fog, or of logs and rocks which 

 took on weird forms. Mystery surrounded even the most in- 

 timate friends, while distressed calls from lost sisters were 



