Well I Knew The
Weariness Of Snow-Climbing, And The Frosts, And The Dangers Of
Mountaineering So Late In The Year; Therefore I Could Not Ask A Guide
To Go With Me, Even Had One Been Willing.
All I wanted was to have
blankets and provisions deposited as far up in the timber as the snow
would permit a pack animal to go.
There I could build a storm nest
and lie warm, and make raids up and around the mountain in accordance
with the weather.
Setting out on the afternoon of November first, with Jerome Fay,
mountaineer and guide, in charge of the animals, I was soon plodding
wearily upward through the muffled winter woods, the snow of course
growing steadily deeper and looser, so that we had to break a trail.
The animals began to get discouraged, and after night and darkness
came on they became entangled in a bed of rough lava, where, breaking
through four or five feet of mealy snow, their feet were caught
between angular boulders. Here they were in danger of being lost, but
after we had removed packs and saddles and assisted their efforts with
ropes, they all escaped to the side of a ridge about a thousand feet
below the timberline.
To go farther was out of the question, so we were compelled to camp as
best we could. A pitch pine fire speedily changed the temperature and
shed a blaze of light on the wild lava-slope and the straggling storm-bent pines around us.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 49 of 304
Words from 13133 to 13387
of 82482
