Sierra Club bulletin Volume 9

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 Excerpt: ...Kearsarge Pass is 11,823 feet above sea level and it is not usual the first day to climb so high, the elevation of our camp being about' 6,000 feet. We had been awed to an early sleeping-bag, so we had to forego the pleasures of a sapphire twilight and of a starry sky. But the morrow had not half the terrors and drawbacks that we had been led to expect. Every quadruped in Inyo County capable of bearing a saddle had been pressed into service for the day's climb. The cavalcade which left Pine Canon on that first morning of real exertion seemed to be interminable. The view from Kearsarge Pass is justly one of the most renowned in the Sierra. To the east lay Owen's Valley and Independence, now grown very tiny. Prominent on the western horizon were North Guard, Mt. Brewer and South Guard. Peering out behind Table Mountain we could see just a corner of Milestone. This glimpse of an old friend furnished occasion for reminiscence of the previous summer's outing when the Club was on the other side of the Kings-Kern Divide. Close at hand were the Kearsarge Pinnacles and the Kearsarge Lakes, stretching on down to Bullfrog Lake, or, as it is sometimes called, Lake Bryanthus. Passing these we descended into the canon of Bubb's Creek to our second night's camp at the base of the East Vidette. To me there has always been something surpassingly precious about the first two or three nights in the mountains. Just as the poet used to comfort his fretful child by taking him to see the stars, so are we, children of this busy world, comforted by the lustre of these clear Sierran nights. The more restless and strenuous were not willing to leave unseen the view from University Peak, 13,000 feet, or the shores of Vidette Lakes, about 11,000 feet above the level of the sea. But the ...