Becky Mountain Trip 
11 
Img^ 88th : Morning promised a clear day and we set out 
for the summit of Blanca* Dr* Hayden, Wilson, Atkinson, Redden 
and myself rode up a narrow and steep ridge to timber line. Some 
two hours work. Hit died our miles to the highest bushes or to 
the rocks and began the dreaded and terrible climb, 2600 feet 
vertical and shout 3 miles horizontal, with much up and down* 
First up about 1000 feet to the first shoulder of the min south¬ 
ern spur, then down slightly along a saddle and up 500 feet to 
tli© second and main shoulder, all this distance over the steep¬ 
est possible grades of rough broken, recompacted and loose rock. 
But this much was only the introduction, the prelude to a great 
act. The two miles of serrated sharp and ragged comb that con¬ 
nect this high southern shoulder with the main pyramidal summit, 
which now appeared to the north, seemed a pathway impossible to 
mortals. We pushed steadily forward, crawling and skipping and 
poising, climbing up tod now letting ourselves down until we 
found ourselves at the base of the last sharp ascent , Mr,Wilson 
and. 1 reached the summit at 10 o 1 clock 30 minutes, the others 
shortly following. It seems a day's work to describe the scene ~ 
nay a month. Let me jot down a few helps to the memory. The 
sharp, jagged spur® that lead out in four directions to the first 
great shoulders; the mighty amphitheater heads of valleys; the 
awful chasms and dizzy precipices; the ere stones dark beneath 
the clouds to the north; the tree dotted slopes and the ribbed 
and scarred summits and the two low passes, Mosea and Music, 
The inimitable park to the west and far beneath us a mysterious 
unreal land, hazy and blue .in the distance, homed in by bluer 
mountains and dotted with fanciful patters of lakes and cloud 
