164 



Sierra Club Bulletin 



arete of the mountain. Following the ridge for a little distance, I 

 enjoyed thrilling views of the glacier beneath me and of the tremen- 

 dous vertical walls on its northern side. To the east was a varied and 

 extensive panorama, beginning with little lakes and forests along 

 the base of the range and reaching far across the desert to mountains 

 on the horizon. Summer clouds and rainbows hovered over the val- 

 ley of the Snake and thunder-storms were raging in the distance. 

 Leaving the arete, I traversed the face of the mountain parallel to the 

 glacier until I entered a long chimney. Far too soon the shadow of 

 Moran reached over Jackson Lake, the sun set, and twilight veiled 

 the distant view. In the failing light I forced my way upward, 

 reaching and straddling from side to side of the chimney in search 

 of handholds and footholds. In the absence of a companion on 

 whose shoulders I might stand, my ice-axe was occasionally useful, 

 although it was in the way when I surmounted a beetling crag. Here 

 and there boulders were insecurely lodged in the chimney and I had 

 to throw my rucksack above while I struggled to surmount them in 

 safety. At one point it was necessary to make a short detour on the 

 smooth, steep surface of the surrounding rock, hanging on by fric- 

 tion rather than by any legitimate hold. For many hundred feet I 

 found athletic exercise which would have been more pleasurable ear- 

 lier in the day. Above the chimney was a vertical cliff and slanting 

 rocks with almost no handholds, which threatened me with an un- 

 hindered descent for thousands of feet on the northern face of the 

 peak. Reaching the highest point of the mountain, I found a level 

 surface, strewn with a few loose rocks, on which no foot had trod. It 

 was possibly 150 feet in length by twenty- five in width, and from its 

 western end I looked down to a col probably less than a hundred feet 

 below me. Beyond it rose a summit of the mountain similar to the 

 one on which I stood, but it was surmounted by a large mass of loose 

 rocks which made it a little higher. From the lake my summit ap- 

 peared the higher. 



At any other time I should have crossed the col, but I had reached 

 the extreme limit of human possibility. It was nine o'clock at night 

 and darkness was upon me. Instead of moonlight, an electrical 

 storm was sweeping toward me from the Grand Teton, and the gale 

 was already driving its sleet furiously against me. Placing my 

 name on a slip of paper in a tin can, I hastily piled a few stones 

 above it, and pocketed samples of the rock. I had remained on the 



