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Sierra Club Bulletin 



miles to the west, and the topography of the region about Mount 

 Humphreys as shown on his map is of the vaguest sort, having no 

 resemblance whatever to the reality. But with the position as given 

 above I had no difficulty in locating this great isolated peak in 1898, 

 and placed it at the head of what is known now as Piute Creek. 

 Later I found that Captain George Wheeler had given the co-ordi- 

 nates of Mount Humphreys as Lat. 37° 16' 01 ."7, Lon. 118° 40' 

 10." g, evidently drawing the same conclusions from the Hoffmann 

 map that I had.* When the Mount Goddard Quadrangle was sur- 

 veyed by the U. S. Geological Survey in 1909, this same location was 

 finally adopted for Mount Humphreys. Since there is no other peak 

 of approximately equal height for a radius of seven miles, I think 

 there can be no question that the peak is correctly shown. With the 

 above data in hand, Mr. C. L. Cory and I attempted the ascent in 

 1898, but the spiry pinnacle defeated us when about five hundred 

 feet below the top.f In 1904 the first ascent was made by Mr. James 

 Hutchinson and his brother Edward Hutchinson. | The height of 

 the mountain is 13,972 feet. 



Much confusion has existed regarding the first ascent on account 

 of the fact that John Muir describes the view from the summit of 

 Mount Humphreys in his "Studies in the Sierra."§ I am confident, 

 however, that Mr. Muir did not ascend the true Mount Humphreys, 

 but some peak farther south, probably one of the Evolution group, 

 and I base my conclusions on a conversation which I had with him 

 shortly after my attempted ascent in 1898. When my account was 

 published in the Sierea Club Bulletin, Mr. Muir spoke to me 

 about the mountain, saying that I must have attempted the wrong 

 peak, since the mountain he had climbed many years ago was not a 

 spiry pinnacle, but a great rounded mountain mass, up which there 

 was no particular difficulty in going. I questioned him regarding his 

 identification of the peak, and he replied that Mr. Hoffmann had 

 described its location to him. He said furthermore that the peak 

 stood at the head of a tributary of the South Fork which entered the 

 main canon in a fall. Since this description does not fit Piute Creek, 



*U. S. Geographical Surveys West of the looth Meridian. Table of Geographic Posi- 

 tions, etc. 1885. Page i8. 



f'Basin of the South Fork of the San Joaquin." By J. N. Le Conte, Sierra Club Bul- 

 letin, vol. II, No. 5, Jan. 1899, page 256. 



f'First Ascent: Mount Humphreys." By J. S. Hutchinson, Jr. Sierra Club Bulletin, 

 vol. V, No. 3, Jan. 1905, page I53- 



§"Studies in the Sierra." By John Muir. Overland Monthly, Jan. 1875. Also, Sierra 

 Club Bulletin, vol. XI, No. 2, page 182. 



