Two Thousand Feet Of Solid Rock Towered Above Us, Four Thousand
Feet Of Broken Rock Shelved Precipitously Below; Smooth Granite
Ribs, With Barely Foothold, Stood Out Here And There; Melted Snow
Refrozen Several Times, Presented A More Serious Obstacle; Many
Of The Rocks Were Loose, And Tumbled Down When Touched.
To
me it was a time of extreme terror.
I was roped to "Jim," but it
was of no use; my feet were paralyzed and slipped on the bare
rock, and he said it was useless to try to go that way, and we
retraced our steps. I wanted to return to the "Notch," knowing
that my incompetence would detain the party, and one of the
young men said almost plainly that a woman was a dangerous
encumbrance, but the trapper replied shortly that if it were not
to take a lady up he would not go up at all. He went on to
explore, and reported that further progress on the correct line
of ascent was blocked by ice; and then for two hours we
descended, lowering ourselves by our hands from rock to rock
along a boulder-strewn sweep of 4,000 feet, patched with ice and
snow, and perilous from rolling stones. My fatigue, giddiness,
and pain from bruised ankles, and arms half pulled out of their
sockets, were so great that I should never have gone halfway had
not "Jim," nolens volens, dragged me along with a patience and
skill, and withal a determination that I should ascend the Peak,
which never failed.
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