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Sierra Club Bulletin 



Amid this icy wilderness our attention was centered on the 

 great white mass of Jumbo, a peak, or rather group of peaks, 

 on whose conquest we had likewise set our hearts. But the 

 story of the Jumbo climb must still remain unwritten, for the 

 latter part of our journey was largely a record of storms, de- 

 lays, and disappointment in the end. 



The day after our triumphant climb we shifted camp to 

 another base, but were no sooner settled than rain overtook us. 

 On September 7th, after several storm-bound days, we at- 

 tempted Jumbo and were within sight of its summit when a 

 storm broke upon us and drove us down. The snow, a gentle 

 descent at first, light as thistle-down, was soon a sleety mass 

 driven against us by the rising wind until cheeks and ears 

 tingled, eyes were blinded, and our clothing was coated with 

 ice. We made record time down over the glacier, fearing that 

 if snow once obliterated our tracks we might experience dan- 

 gerous delays in groping our way among the network of open 

 and blind crevasses, among which we had so slowly made our 

 upward way. We were barely off the upper fields when a 

 magnificent thunderstorm broke, whose tremendous reverbera- 

 tions among the lofty peaks above us did much to reconcile us 

 to our inglorious but safe return. 



These days of storm that brought our mountaineering sum- 

 mer to a close had, after all, their own inimitable charm — ^the 

 sifting of new-fallen snow on the dark ledges of the Famham 

 Group; the low-lying clouds that drifted across their cliffs; 

 the marvelous storm-clouds that were gathered on Jumbo, and 

 rent apart, and sent by the wind flying upward across its icy 

 face ; the glorious wealth of color that the frost painted on the 

 aspens and dwarf birches, even upon the epilobium leaves, mak- 

 ing the plants bloom again as in a second spring. And how 

 glorious were our campfires, their sparks flying high aloft 

 in the stormy darkness, and how warm and ruddy the firelight 

 shone on faces grown so familiar and dear in these happy days 

 of trail and camp. But, even though it matters so little in the 

 after days whether the summit be lost or won, we followed the 

 trail homeward through the autumnal splendor with the sense 

 of defeat strong upon us ; happily so, perhaps, for all the more 

 urgently are we compelled to return to this glorious mountain 

 country and try again. 



