Exploration of Mount Darwin 



287 



Wallace was out of the question. The failure of several parties the 

 preceding season to reach the summit from the Evolution Lake side 

 led us to believe that perhaps the feasible route would be from the 

 amphitheater on the north, and the desire to explore that region de- 

 termined our course. The next morning we worked around the west- 

 ern side of Mount Wallace and into the lake basin and amphitheater 

 north of that peak, and ascended to the stream flowing from the big 

 glacier on the north side of Mount Darwin. This amphitheater we 

 found quite interesting and well worth a visit. Through its central 

 axis extends a chain of lakes, separated by almost regular intervals 

 and ranging in color from deep blue in the lower lake to turquoise 

 in the upper one, while the north wall of Mount Wallace, Mount 

 Darwin, and the connecting ridge presents one of the most spectacu- 

 lar sights in the Sierra. 



All the way up the amphitheater we carefully examined every 

 chimney and notch in the wall, but with little encouragement. We 

 decided, however, to climb up the talus to the glacier for a closer in- 

 spection, and on the ridge about midway between Mount Wallace 

 and Mount Darwin we descried a rather broad notch and one hun- 

 dred yards to the east a narrower one. These were the only points in 

 the ridge that appeared possible for us to reach. Between the former 

 and the summit there were a number of apparently insurmountable 

 precipices, so we turned our attention more critically toward the 

 eastern notch and observed a large ice-tongue extending from the 

 glacier almost to it. A narrower tongue a hundred feet to the west 

 led to a shelf from which a way to the notch appeared possible. On 

 attempting to cross the glacier, which was practically free of snow 

 and overflowing with water, we found it so dangerous to advance 

 that we retraced our steps and continued up the west side of the 

 glacier nearly to the wall, where there was more snow, less water, 

 and a slighter angle of declivity. After avoiding with some difficulty 

 the bergschrund, we crossed to the ice-tongues and found them too 

 steep to climb even if we had had ice-axes. We observed, however, a 

 crack about four inches wide between the tongue and the wall where 

 the ice had shrunken, and, by wedging one foot at a time in this 

 crack, Peter Frandsen and I climbed up it twenty feet or more to the 

 shelf from which we were able, with careful work, to reach the 

 notch. Progress to the peak still seemed doubtful, but we were much 

 elated to see that from where we stood there was a perfectly feasible. 



