The 1^21 Outing 



259 



The Ritter party consisted of ten men and eleven women, under the 

 leadership of Mr. Allen. Mr. Clyde, who had gone up alone to the 

 summit the preceding day to scout out a route, acted as guide to the 

 party. The climb was made by way of the Ritter-Banner saddle. 

 Beyond, a steep snow-tongue and some eight hundred feet of rock- 

 work lay between us and the summit, which we reached five and a 

 quarter hours after leaving Thousand Island Lake. The lake was 

 hidden by the rugged mass of Banner, which is only a few hundred 

 feet lower than Ritter itself, but beyond it rose the Dana group, 

 Conness and Ragged Peak, Lyell and McClure, and southward the 

 Minarets — all familiar points in a wide vista of mountain peaks 

 and ridges stretching away in every direction. 



We returned by a series of snow-slides to the new camp on Garnet 

 Lake, the original intention of camping in the Shadow Lake Basin 

 having been abandoned owing to difficulties with the pack-train. 

 Many parties, however, crossed the divide to the south and visited 

 one or more of the beautiful lakes which lie beyond it. Iceberg Lake 

 is a sapphire gem set in dark rock, with a pale-green glacier and the 

 black spires of the Minarets towering above it. The grassy margin 

 of Lake Edisa is strewn with flowers and bordered by graceful 

 mountain hemlocks; in the background rises the majestic bulk of 

 Banner and Ritter. 



From Garnet Lake the trail next day led back across the divide 

 toward Thousand Island Lake, then by the flower-covered meadows 

 of Agnew Pass to Gem Lake — whose shores were ringed with dead 

 trees, killed by the raising of the water-level — and to Gem Pass. 

 Here, where even the hardy Pinus albicaulis gives way before the 

 winds which sweep over the divide, we stood and looked down thou- 

 sands of feet upon Mono Lake and the Mono Craters shimmering in 

 the mid-day heat of the desert, while behind us lay the high crest of 

 the Sierra, wave on wave of dark peaks and snow-covered glaciers — 

 a study in contrasts as fine as any we were privileged to see. 



That night's camp-ground at Alger Lake closely fitted the descrip- 

 tion of it given us by the management. It "commanded an uninter- 

 rupted view in all directions," and the small scattered groups of 

 stunted albicaulis on the steep hillside were eagerly sought. Bathing 

 in the lake, with a large snow-bank close by, was too cold to attract 

 a crowd; but if the bathing-queue was not large, the same cannot 

 be said of the dinner-line. 



