The Summit Ridge Was Fortunately
Wind-Swept And Nearly Bare, So We Were Not Compelled To Lift Our Feet
High, And On Reaching The Long Home Slopes Laden With Loose Snow We
Made Rapid Progress, Sliding And Shuffling And Pitching Headlong, Our
Feebleness Accelerating Rather Than Diminishing Our Speed.
When we
had descended some three thousand feet the sunshine warmed our backs
and we began to revive.
At 10 a.m. we reached the timber and were
safe.
Half an hour later we heard Sisson shouting down among the firs,
coming with horses to take us to the hotel. After breaking a trail
through the snow as far as possible he had tied his animals and walked
up. We had been so long without food that we cared but little about
eating, but we eagerly drank the coffee he prepared for us. Our feet
were frozen, and thawing them was painful, and had to be done very
slowly by keeping them buried in soft snow for several hours, which
avoided permanent damage. Five thousand feet below the summit we
found only three inches of new snow, and at the base of the mountain
only a slight shower of rain had fallen, showing how local our storm
had been, notwithstanding its terrific fury. Our feet were wrapped in
sacking, and we were soon mounted and on our way down into the thick
sunshine - "God's Country," as Sisson calls the Chaparral Zone. In two
hours' ride the last snowbank was left behind. Violets appeared along
the edges of the trail, and the chaparral was coming into bloom, with
young lilies and larkspurs about the open places in rich profusion.
How beautiful seemed the golden sunbeams streaming through the woods
between the warm brown boles of the cedars and pines! All my friends
among the birds and plants seemed like OLD friends, and we felt like
speaking to every one of them as we passed, as if we had been a long
time away in some far, strange country.
In the afternoon we reached Strawberry Valley and fell asleep. Next
morning we seemed to have risen from the dead. My bedroom was flooded
with sunshine, and from the window I saw the great white Shasta cone
clad in forests and clouds and bearing them loftily in the sky.
Everything seemed full and radiant with the freshness and beauty and
enthusiasm of youth. Sisson's children came in with flowers and
covered my bed, and the storm on the mountaintop banished like a
dream.
V
Shasta Rambles and Modoc Memories
Arctic beauty and desolation, with their blessings and dangers, all
may be found here, to test the endurance and skill of adventurous
climbers; but far better than climbing the mountain is going around
its warm, fertile base, enjoying its bounties like a bee circling
around a bank of flowers. The distance is about a hundred miles, and
will take some of the time we hear so much about - a week or two - but
the benefits will compensate for any number of weeks.
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