Colby Pass and the Black Kaweah 



133 



After two hours' climbing we again reached the knife-edge and 

 looked over into the deep abyss on the north side. Right above us, 

 two hundred feet to the east, towered the summit. Our chimney now 

 swung directly around to the southeast and narrowed up consider- 

 ably. Soon we were in a tiny notch on a small buttress running out 

 southwest from the main peak and not more than twenty-five feet 

 from the summit. Here, unintentionally, we started a small ava- 

 lanche. It shot down in a northwesterly direction, increasing in 

 momentum and volume as it progressed, and in a few moments we 

 heard it thundering down the chimney south and back of us — the 

 chimney by which we had ascended — making a complete turn. 



After eight hours of continuous climbing, at 1 145 we were at the 

 summit (13,752 ft.), and spontaneously set up a mighty shout of 

 joy. The peak stands in the midst of a tremendous amphitheater 

 formed by the multitudinous peaks of the Great Western Divide and 

 the peaks of the main crest. We looked into the whole region trav- 

 ersed by us during the three preceding weeks and saw the route we 

 should follow returning to Giant Forest. Immediately below us to 

 the south and west lay the deep depression of the Big Arroyo; on the 

 northwest lay the Nine Lakes Basin; to the northeast lay the Kern- 

 Kaweah Canon; and to the east we looked along the ragged, jagged 

 crest of the Kaweahs. 



The only sign of life having been there before was an eagle's 

 feather on the extreme summit. This we carried away as a trophy. 

 After lunching and feasting on the superb view, we built a monu- 

 ment three feet high, thus making our mountain one foot higher than 

 the next Kaweah Peak to the east. Then a flag-pole was constructed 

 from the legs of our camera tripod, a white handkerchief was at- 

 tached, and a flag was left floating from the summit. In the monu- 

 ment we deposited a tobacco-can containing the following memo- 

 randum : 



August II, Ip20. — Left camp one mile below Nine Lake 

 Basin at 3:40 a.m. Attempted to climb along N.W. ridge 

 but impassable notches prevented. Then dropped down 

 about 400 feet into the southern cirque and ascended the 

 chimney which reaches the northwest ridge lOO feet 

 N.W. of the summit. Arrived at summit at 1:43 p.m. 



Duncan McDuffie, Berkeley, Calif. 

 Onis Imus Brown, Lemon Cove, Cal. 

 J. S. Hutchinson, Berkeley, Calif. 



