the spurs which projected from them, nearly overhanging the middle of
the valley, towered above us with more and more severe sculpture. We
frequently crossed deep fields of snow, and at last reached the level of
the highest pines, where long slopes of _débris_ swept down from either
cliff, meeting in the middle. Over and among these immense blocks, often
twenty and thirty feet high, we were obliged to climb, hearing far below
us the subterranean gurgle of streams.
Interlocking spurs nearly closed the gorge behind us; our last view was
out a granite gateway formed of two nearly vertical precipices,
sharp-edged, jutting buttress-like, and plunging down into a field of
angular bowlders which fill the valley-bottom.
The eye ranged out from this open gateway overlooking the great King’s
Cañon with its moraine-terraced walls, the domes of granite upon Big
Meadows, and the undulating stretch of forest which descends to the
plain.
The gorge turning southward, we rounded a sort of mountain promontory,
which, closing the view behind us, shut us up in the bottom of a perfect
basin. In front lay a placid lake reflecting the intense black-blue of
the sky. Granite, stained with purple and red, sank into it upon one
side, and a broad, spotless field of snow came down to its margin upon
the other.
From a pile of large granite blocks, forty or fifty feet above the
lake-margin, we could look down fully a hundred feet through the
transparent water to where bowlders 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 twelve thousand five hundred feet--beginning to tell upon 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
_débris_ 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 moments not a word was spoken.
The Sierras are here two parallel summit ranges. We were upon the crest
of the western ridge, and looked down into a gulf five thousand feet
deep, sinking from our feet in abrupt cliffs nearly or quite two
thousand 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 tremble, 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 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 was ready to start. His old answer,
“Why not?” left the initiative with me; so I told Professor Brewer that
we would bid him good-by. 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-by,” receiving their “God
bless you” in return, and started southward along the range to look for
some possible cliff to descend. Brewer, Gardiner, 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 discernible. 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 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 had found a resting-place upon a cleft of rock,
then I lowered them to him with our lasso, afterward descending
cautiously to his side, taking my turn in pioneering downward, receiving
the freight of knapsacks by lasso as before. In this manner we consumed
more than half the afternoon in descending a thousand feet of broken,
precipitous slope; and it was almost sunset when we found ourselves upon
the 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 rose either 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 _débris_, 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 two thousand feet above us, the higher crags not infrequently
reaching three thousand 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 shavings 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 two thousand
feet into the King’s Cañon. Across the gulf rose the whole procession of
summit peaks, their lower halves 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
vapor-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 splendor. 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 frequency. 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 till four, when we rose 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 cañon.
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 toward 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 regulation.
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 rock piercing up through the snow, so closely grouped that, had we
fallen, a miracle only might save 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, until we stood together upon 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 _débris_, 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
wild 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 an 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
zigzag direction upward and to the south, bringing us out at last upon
the thin blade of a ridge which connected a short distance above with
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 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 thirteen thousand 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 five thousand 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 cañons 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 Cañon, 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 _névé_, 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
Cañon, 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 colors 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.