lake margin, we could look down fully a hundred feet through the
transparent water to where boulders and pebbles were strewn upon the
stone bottom. We had now reached the base of Mount Brewer and were
skirting its southern spurs in a wide open corridor surrounded in all
directions by lofty granite crags from two to four thousand feet high;
above the limits of vegetation, rocks, lakes of deep heavenly blue, and
white trackless snows were grouped closely about us. Two sounds, a sharp
little cry of martens and occasional heavy crashes of falling rock,
saluted us.
Climbing became exceedingly difficult, light air--for we had already
reached 12,500 feet--beginning to tell on our lungs to such an extent
that my friend, who had taken turns with me in carrying my pack, was
unable to do so any longer, and I adjusted it to my own shoulders for
the rest of the day.
After four hours of slow laborious work we made the base of the debris
slope which rose about a thousand feet to a saddle pass in the western
mountain wall, that range upon which Mount Brewer is so prominent a
point. We were nearly an hour in toiling up this slope over an uncertain
footing which gave way at almost every step. At last, when almost at the
top, we paused to take breath, and then all walked out upon the crest,
laid off our packs, and sat down together upon the summit of the ridge,
and for a few minutes not a word was spoken.
The Sierras are here two parallel summit ranges. We were upon the crest
of the western range, and looked down into a gulf 5,000 feet deep,
sinking from our feet in abrupt cliffs nearly or quite 2,000 feet, whose
base plunged into a broad field of snow lying steep and smooth for a
great distance, but broken near its foot by craggy steps often a
thousand feet high.
Vague blue haze obscured the lost depths, hiding details, giving a
bottomless distance out of which, like the breath of wind, floated up a
faint treble, vibrating upon the senses, yet never clearly heard.
Rising on the other side, cliff above cliff, precipice piled upon
precipice, rock over rock, up against sky, towered the most gigantic
mountain-wall in America, culminating in a noble pile of gothic-finished
granite and enamel-like snow. How grand and inviting looked its white
form, its untrodden, unknown crest, so high and pure in the clear strong
blue! I looked at it as one contemplating the purpose of his life; and
for just one moment I would have rather liked to dodge that purpose, or
to have waited, or to have found some excellent reason why I might not
go; but all this quickly vanished, leaving a cheerful resolve to go
ahead.
From the two opposing mountain-walls singular, thin, knife-blade ridges
of stone jutted out, dividing the sides of the gulf into a series of
amphitheatres, each one a labyrinth of ice and rock. Piercing thick beds
of snow, sprang up knobs and straight isolated spires of rock, mere
obelisks curiously carved by frost, their rigid slender forms casting a
blue, sharp shadow upon the snow. Embosomed in depressions of ice, or
resting on broken ledges, were azure lakes, deeper in tone than the
sky, which at this altitude, even at midday, has a violet duskiness.
To the south, not more than eight miles, a wall of peaks stood across
the gulf, dividing the King's, which flowed north at our feet, from the
Kern River, that flowed down the trough in the opposite direction.
I did not wonder that Brewer and Hoffman pronounced our undertaking
impossible; but when I looked at Cotter there was such complete bravery
in his eye that I asked him if he were ready to start. His old answer,
"Why not?," left the initiative with me; so I told Professor Brewer that
we would bid him good-bye. Our friends helped us on with our packs in
silence, and as we shook hands there was not a dry eye in the party.
Before he let go of my hand Professor Brewer asked me for my plan, and I
had to own that I had but one, which was to reach the highest peak in
the range.
After looking in every direction I was obliged to confess that I saw as
yet no practicable way. We bade them a "good-bye," receiving their "God
bless you" in return, and started southward along the range to look for
some possible cliff to descend. Brewer, Gardner, and Hoffman turned
north to push upward to the summit of Mount Brewer, and complete their
observations. We saw them whenever we halted, until at last, on the very
summit, their microscopic forms were for the last time visible. With
very great difficulty we climbed a peak which surmounted our wall just
to the south of the pass, and, looking over the eastern brink, found
that the precipice was still sheer and unbroken. In one place, where the
snow lay against it to the very top, we went to its edge and
contemplated the slide. About three thousand feet of unbroken white, at
a fearfully steep angle, lay below us. We threw a stone over it and
watched it bound until it was lost in the distance; after fearful leaps
we could only detect it by the flashings of snow where it struck, and as
these were in some instances three hundred feet apart, we decided not to
launch our own valuable bodies, and the still more precious barometer,
after it.
There seemed but one possible way to reach our goal; that was to make
our way along the summit of the cross ridge which projected between the
two ranges. This divide sprang out from our Mount Brewer wall, about
four miles to the south of us. To reach it we must climb up and down
over the indented edge of the Mount Brewer wall. In attempting to do
this we had a rather lively time scaling a sharp granite needle, where
we found our course completely stopped by precipices four and five
hundred feet in height. Ahead of us the summit continued to be broken
into fantastic pinnacles, leaving us no hope of making our way along it;
so we sought the most broken part of the eastern descent, and began to
climb down. The heavy knapsacks, besides wearing our shoulders gradually
into a black-and-blue state, overbalanced us terribly, and kept us in
constant danger of pitching headlong. At last, taking them off, Cotter
climbed down until he found a resting-place upon a cleft of rock, then I
lowered them to him with our lasso, afterwards descending cautiously to
his side, taking my turn in pioneering downward, receiving the freight
of knapsacks as before. In this manner we consumed more that half the
afternoon in descending a thousand feet of broken, precipitous slope;
and it was almost sunset when we found ourselves upon fields of level
snow which lay white and thick over the whole interior slope of the
amphitheatre. The gorge below us seemed utterly impassable. At our backs
the Mount Brewer wall either rose in sheer cliffs or in broken, rugged
stairway, such as had offered us our descent. From this cruel dilemma
the cross divide furnished the only hope, and the sole chance of scaling
that was at its junction with the Mount Brewer wall. Toward this point
we directed our course, marching wearily over stretches of dense frozen
snow, and regions of debris, reaching about sunset the last alcove of
the amphitheatre, just at the foot of the Mount Brewer wall. It was
evidently impossible for us to attempt to climb it that evening, and we
looked about the desolate recesses for a sheltered camping-spot. A high
granite wall surrounded us upon three sides, recurring to the southward
in long elliptical curves; no part of the summit being less than 2,000
feet above us, the higher crags not infrequently reaching 3,000 feet. A
single field of snow swept around the base of the rock, and covered the
whole amphitheatre, except where a few spikes and rounded masses of
granite rose through it, and where two frozen lakes, with their blue
ice-disks, broke the monotonous surface. Through the white snow-gate of
our amphitheatre, as through a frame, we looked eastward upon the summit
group; not a tree, not a vestige of vegetation in sight,--sky, snow, and
granite the only elements in this wild picture.
After searching for a shelter we at last found a granite crevice near
the margin of one of the frozen lakes,--a sort of shelf just large
enough for Cotter and me,--where we hastened to make our bed, having
first filled the canteen from a small stream that trickled over the ice,
knowing that in a few moments the rapid chill would freeze it. We ate
our supper of cold venison and bread, and whittled from the sides of the
wooden barometer case shaving enough to warm water for a cup of
miserably tepid tea, and then, packing our provisions and instruments
away at the head of the shelf, rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay
down to enjoy the view.
After such fatiguing exercises the mind has an almost abnormal
clearness: whether this is wholly from within, or due to the intensely
vitalizing mountain air, I am not sure; probably both contribute to the
state of exaltation in which all alpine climbers find themselves. The
solid granite gave me a luxurious repose, and I lay on the edge of our
little rock niche and watched the strange yet brilliant scene.
All the snow of our recess lay in the shadow of the high granite wall to
the west, but the Kern divide which curved around us from the southeast
was in full light; its broken sky-line, battlemented and adorned with
innumerable rough-hewn spires and pinnacles, was a mass of glowing
orange intensely defined against the deep violet sky. At the open end of
our horseshoe amphitheatre, to the east, its floor of snow rounded over
in a smooth brink, overhanging precipices which sank 2,000 feet into the
King's Canon. Across the gulf rose the whole procession of summit peaks,
their lower half rooted in a deep sombre shadow cast by the western
wall, the heights bathed in a warm purple haze, in which the irregular
marbling of snow burned with a pure crimson light. A few fleecy clouds,
dyed fiery orange, drifted slowly eastward across the narrow zone of sky
which stretched from summit to summit like a roof. At times the sound of
waterfalls, faint and mingled with echoes, floated up through the still
air. The snow near by lay in cold ghastly shade, warmed here and there
in strange flashes by light reflected downward from drifting clouds. The
sombre waste about us; the deep violet vault overhead; those far
summits, glowing with reflected rose; the deep impenetrable gloom which
filled the gorge, and slowly and with vapour-like stealth climbed the
mountain wall, extinguishing the red light, combined to produce an
effect which may not be described; nor can I more than hint at the
contrast between the brilliancy of the scene under full light, and the
cold, death-like repose which followed when the wan cliffs and pallid
snow were all overshadowed with ghostly gray.
A sudden chill enveloped us. Stars in a moment crowded through the dark
heaven, flashing with a frosty splendour. The snow congealed, the brooks
ceased to flow, and, under the powerful sudden leverage of frost,
immense blocks were dislodged all along the mountain summits and came
thundering down the slopes, booming upon the ice, dashing wildly upon
rocks. Under the lee of our shelf we felt quite safe, but neither Cotter
nor I could help being startled, and jumping just a little, as these
missiles, weighing often many tons, struck the ledge over our heads and
whizzed down the gorge, their stroke resounding fainter and fainter,
until at last only a confused echo reached us.
The thermometer at nine o'clock marked twenty degrees above zero. We set
the "minimum" and rolled ourselves together for the night. The longer I
lay the less I liked that shelf of granite; it grew hard in time, and
cold also, my bones seeming to approach actual contact with the chilled
rock; moreover, I found that even so vigorous a circulation as mine was
not enough to warm up the ledge to anything like a comfortable
temperature. A single thickness of blanket is a better mattress than
none, but the larger crystals of orthoclase, protruding plentifully,
punched my back and caused me to revolve on a horizontal axis with
precision and accuracy. How I loved Cotter! how I hugged him and got
warm, while our backs gradually petrified, till we whirled over and
thawed them out together! The slant of that bed was diagonal and
excessive; down it we slid till the ice chilled us awake, and we crawled
back and chocked ourselves up with bits of granite inserted under my
ribs and shoulders. In this pleasant position we got dozing again, and
there stole over me a most comfortable ease. The granite softened
perceptibly. I was delightfully warm and sank into an industrious
slumber which lasted with great soundness until four, when we arose and
ate our breakfast of frozen venison.
The thermometer stood at two above zero; everything was frozen tight
except the canteen, which we had prudently kept between us all night.
Stars still blazed brightly, and the moon, hidden from us by western
cliffs, shone in pale reflection upon the rocky heights to the east,
which rose, dimly white, up from the impenetrable shadows of the canon.
Silence,--cold, ghastly dimness, in which loomed huge forms,--the biting
frostiness of the air, wrought upon our feelings as we shouldered our
packs and started with slow pace to climb up the "divide."
Soon, to our dismay, we found the straps had so chafed our shoulders
that the weight gave us great pain, and obliged us to pad them with our
handkerchiefs and extra socks, which remedy did not wholly relieve us
from the constant wearing pain of the heavy load.
Directing our steps southward toward a niche in the wall which bounded
us only half a mile distant, we travelled over a continuous snow-field
frozen so densely as scarcely to yield at all to our tread, at the same
time compressing enough to make that crisp frosty sound which we all
used to enjoy even before we knew from the books that it had something
to do with the severe name of regelation.
As we advanced, the snow sloped more and more steeply up toward the
crags, till by and by it became quite dangerous, causing us to cut steps
with Cotter's large bowie-knife,--a slow, tedious operation, requiring
patience of a pretty permanent kind. In this way we spent a quiet social
hour or so. The sun had not yet reached us, being shut out by the high
amphitheatre wall; but its cheerful light reflected downward from a
number of higher crags, filling the recess with the brightness of day,
and putting out of existence those shadows which so sombrely darkened
the earlier hours. To look back when we stopped to rest was to realize
our danger,--that smooth, swift slope of ice carrying the eye down a
thousand feet to the margin of a frozen mirror of ice; ribs and needles
of rocks piercing up through the snow, so closely grouped that, had we
fallen, a miracle only might have saved us from being dashed. This led
to rather deeper steps, and greater care that our burdens should be
held more nearly over the centre of gravity, and a pleasant relief when
we got to the top of the snow and sat down on a block of granite to
breathe and look up in search of a way up the thousand-foot cliff of
broken surface, among the lines of fracture and the galleries winding
along the face.
It would have disheartened us to gaze up the hard sheer front of
precipices, and search among splintered projections, crevices, shelves,
and snow patches for an inviting route, had we not been animated by a
faith that the mountains could not defy us.
Choosing what looked like the least impossible way, we started; but,
finding it unsafe to work with packs on, resumed the yesterday's
plan,--Cotter taking the lead, climbing about fifty feet ahead, and
hoisting up the knapsacks and barometer as I tied them to the end of the
lasso. Constantly closing up in hopeless difficulty before us, the way
opened again and again to our gymnastics, till we stood together on a
mere shelf, not more than two feet wide, which led diagonally up the
smooth cliff. Edging along in careful steps, our backs flattened upon
the granite, we moved slowly to a broad platform, where we stopped for
breath.
There was no foothold above us. Looking down over the course we had
come, it seemed, and I really believe it was, an impossible descent for
one can climb upward with safety where he cannot downward. To turn back
was to give up in defeat; and, we sat at least half an hour, suggesting
all possible routes to the summit, accepting none, and feeling
disheartened. About thirty feet directly over our heads was another
shelf, which, if we could reach, seemed to offer at least a temporary
way upward. On its edge were two or three spikes of granite; whether
firmly connected with the cliff, or merely blocks of debris, we could
not tell from below. I said to Cotter, I thought of but one possible
plan: it was to lasso one of these blocks, and to climb, sailor-fashion,
hand over hand, up the rope. In the lasso I had perfect confidence, for
I had seen more than one Spanish bull throw his whole weight against it
without parting a strand. The shelf was so narrow that throwing the coil
of rope was a very difficult undertaking. I tried three times, and
Cotter spent five minutes vainly whirling the loop up at the granite
spikes. At last I made a lucky throw, and it tightened upon one of the
smaller protuberances. I drew the noose close, and very gradually threw
my hundred and fifty pounds upon the rope; then Cotter joined me, and,
for a moment, we both hung our united weight upon it. Whether the rock
moved slightly or whether the lasso stretched a little we were unable to
decide; but the trial must be made, and I began to climb slowly. The
smooth precipice-face against which my body swung offered no foothold,
and the whole climb had therefore to be done by the arms, an effort
requiring all one's determination. When about half way up I was obliged
to rest, and, curling my feet in the rope, managed to relieve my arms
for a moment. In this position I could not resist the fascinating
temptation of a survey downward.
Straight down, nearly a thousand feet below, at the foot of the rocks,
began the snow, whose steep, roof-like slope, exaggerated into an almost
vertical angle, curved down in a long white field, broken far away by
rocks and polished, round lakes of ice.
Cotter looked up cheerfully and asked how I was making it; to which I
answered that I had plenty of wind left. At that moment, when hanging
between heaven and earth, it was a deep satisfaction to look down at the
wide gulf of desolation beneath, and up to unknown dangers ahead, and
feel my nerves cool and unshaken.
A few pulls hand over hand brought me to the edge of the shelf, when,
throwing my arm around the granite spike. I swung my body upon the shelf
and lay down to rest, shouting to Cotter that I was all right, and that
the prospects upward were capital. After a few moments' breathing I
looked over the brink and directed my comrade to tie the barometer to
the lower end of the lasso, which he did, and that precious instrument
was hoisted to my station, and the lasso sent down twice for knapsacks,
after which Cotter came up the rope in his very muscular way without
once stopping to rest. We took our loads in our hands, swinging the
barometer over my shoulder, and climbed up a shelf which led in a
zig-zag direction upward and to the south, bringing us out at last upon
the thin blade of a ridge which connected a short distance above the
summit. It was formed of huge blocks, shattered, and ready, at a touch,
to fall.
So narrow and sharp was the upper slope, that we dared not walk, but got
astride, and worked slowly along with our hands, pushing the knapsacks
in advance, now and then holding our breath when loose masses rocked
under our weight.
Once upon the summit, a grand view burst upon us. Hastening to step upon
the crest of the divide, which was never more than ten feet wide,
frequently sharpened to a mere blade, we looked down upon the other
side, and were astonished to find we had ascended the gentler slope, and
that the rocks fell from our feet in almost vertical precipices for a
thousand feet or more. A glance along the summit toward the highest
group showed us that any advance in that direction was impossible, for
the thin ridge was gashed down in notches three or four hundred feet
deep, forming a procession of pillars, obelisks, and blocks piled upon
each other, and looking terribly insecure.
We then deposited our knapsacks in a safe place, and, finding that it
was already noon, determined to rest a little while and take a lunch at
over 13,000 feet above the sea.
West of us stretched the Mount Brewer wall with its succession of
smooth precipices and amphitheatre ridges. To the north the great gorge
of the King's River yawned down 5,000 feet. To the south, the valley of
the Kern, opening in the opposite direction, was broader, less deep, but
more filled with broken masses of granite. Clustered about the foot of
the divide were a dozen alpine lakes; the higher ones blue sheets of
ice, the lowest completely melted. Still lower in the depths of the two
canons we could see groups of forest trees; but they were so dim and so
distant as never to relieve the prevalent masses of rock and snow. Our
divide cast its shadow for a mile down King's Canon in dark-blue profile
upon the broad sheets of sunny snow, from whose brightness the hard
splintered cliffs caught reflections and wore an aspect of joy.
Thousands of rills poured from the melting snow, filling the air with a
musical tinkle as of many accordant bells. The Kern Valley opened below
us with its smooth oval outline, the work of extinct glaciers, whose
form and extent were evident from worn cliff surface and rounded wall;
snow-fields, relics of the former _neve_ [glacier snow] hung in white
tapestries around its ancient birthplace; and, as far as we could see,
the broad, corrugated valley, for a breadth of fully ten miles, shone
with burnishings wherever its granite surface was not covered with
lakelets or thickets of alpine vegetation.
Through a deep cut in the Mount Brewer wall we gained our first view to
the westward, and saw in the distance the wall of the South King's
Canon, and the granite point which Cotter and I had climbed a fortnight
before. But for the haze we might have seen the plain; for above its
farther limit were several points of the Coast Ranges, isolated like
islands in the sea.
The view was so grand, the mountain colours so brilliant, immense
snow-fields and blue alpine lakes so charming, that we almost forgot we
were ever to move, and it was only after a swift hour of this delight
that we began to consider our future course.
The King's Canon, which headed against our wall, seemed
untraversable,--no human being could climb along the divide; we had then
but one hope of reaching the peak, and our greatest difficulty lay at
the start. If we could climb down to the Kern side of the divide, and
succeed in reaching the base of the precipices which fell from our feet,
it really looked as if we might travel without difficulty among the
rocks to the other side of the Kern Valley, and make our attempt upon
the southward flank of the great peak. One look at the sublime white
giant decided us. We looked down over the precipice, and at first could
see no method of descent. Then we went back and looked at the road we
had come up, to see if that were not possibly as bad; but the broken
surface of the rocks was evidently much better climbing-ground than
anything ahead of us. Cotter, with danger, edged his way along the wall
to the east, and I to the west, to see if there might not be some
favourable point; but we both returned with the belief that the
precipice in front of us was as passable as any of it. Down it we must.
After lying on our faces, looking over the brink ten or twenty minutes,
I suggested that by lowering ourselves on the rope we might climb from
crevice to crevice; but we saw no shelf large enough for ourselves and
the knapsacks too. However, we were not going to give it up without a
trial; and I made the rope fast around my breast and, looping the noose
over a firm point of rock, let myself slide gradually down to a notch
forty feet below. There was only room beside me for Cotter, so I had him
send down the knapsacks first. I then tied these together by the straps
with my silk handkerchiefs, and hung them as far to the left as I could
reach without losing my balance, looping the handkerchiefs over a point
of rock. Cotter then slid down the rope, and, with considerable
difficulty, we whipped the noose off its resting-place above, and cut
off our connection with the upper world.