Chapter VIII. 
The rocky 
buttresses of Elena and Savoia Peaks, and the precipitous 
cliffs of the north face of Mount Baker, overtopped towards 
the east by Moore and Wollaston Peaks, are especially grand. 
After skirting the foot of the south-west ridge of Mt. Speke, 
they pursued their way nearly on a level under the western 
cliff, keeping high and not far from the glacier. This glacier 
has withdrawn recently, leaving a long fringe of rocks and 
moraine detritus, under which a few senecios and groups of 
helichrysum have taken root. 
A little further on, the tent was pitched on a narrow 
strip of land between two oval lakes and the margin of the 
Speke Glacier. This is Camp V, at a height of 14,682 feet 
above the sea-level, immediately under Vittorio Emanuele 
Peak. There were only a few senecios at this point, and 
the natives sought for shelter lower down, where there was 
abundance of wood. The sky was clear overhead, but round 
the peaks and in the valleys lingered fogs, which hid the 
greater part of the landscape. A little further and lower 
down was a third lake, somewhat larger than the two which 
were near the camp. 
On the next day, first climbing the rocks and then up the 
glacier, following an easy western ridge, without once using the 
rope, in a little more than an hour they reached the summit of 
Vittorio Emanuele Peak, 16,080 feet above the sea-level. It was 
6.30 in the morning and they were already surrounded by dense 
fog. They remained nearly eight hours on the summit in vain 
expectation of an opening in the fog, which never came. There 
was a light, variable wind, and every now and then a snowfall, 
changing occasionally into brief and violent showers of hail. 
At one time they were enveloped in a cloud so charged with 
heard as they crash down into the valley 
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