Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada

This book, originally published in 1871, has long been out of print, though in constant demand. Its publication was discontinued owing to the desire of the author to make certai...

Along its upper limit the forest zone grows thin and irregular; black shafts of alpine pines and firs clustering on sheltered slopes, or climbing in disordered processions up br...

While I looked the sun descended; shadows climbed the Sierras, casting a gloom over foot-hill and pine, until at last only the snow summits, reflecting the evening light, glowed...

Jerry came for me by appointment just before sunset, and we walked leisurely across the meadow, and under lengthening pine shadows, to the rancheria. No one was stirring. Buck a...

Our walking-shoes were in excellent condition, the hobnails firm and new. We laid out a barometer, a compass, a pocket-level, a set of wet and dry thermometers, note-books, with...

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 t...

The two halves of this view, both in sight at once, express the highest, the most acute, aspects of desolation--inanimate forms out of which something living has gone forever. F...

In all my experience of mountaineering I have never known an act of such real, profound courage as this of Cotter’s. It is one thing, in a moment of excitement, to make a gallan...

When I had breakfasted I joined Mr. Newty in his trip to the corral, where we stood together for hours, during which I had mastered the story of his years since, in 1850, he lef...

For the first twenty minutes the road was hard and smooth and level; after that gentle, shallow undulations began, and at last, at brief intervals, were sharp, narrow arroyos (d...

Late in the afternoon of October 5, 1864, a party of us reached the edge of Yosemite, and, looking down into the valley, saw that the summer haze had been banished from the regi...

The average section of the old glacier was perhaps six hundred feet thick by half a mile in width. I followed its course from Mount Hoffmann down as far as I could ride, and the...

We hurried to breakfast, and hastily putting on the saddles, and wrapping ourselves from head to foot in our blankets, mounted and started for the crest of the moraine. I had ta...

Believing that we must still be below the bridge, we walked rapidly up the bank until at last we found it, and came quickly to Clark’s. We pounded upon the cabin door, and waked...

In general outline the geology of the region is simple. Its bounding ranges were chiefly blocked out at the period of Jurassic upheaval, when the Sierra Nevada and Wahsatch Moun...

He led her quietly down to the brook, and never drank a drop until the mare was done; then they paid a call at camp, nosing about among the kettles with familiar freedom, nibbli...

With a look of despair the driver got off and laid the lash freely among his team; they jumped and jerked, frantically tangled themselves up, and at last all sulked and became s...

The “buck” was spearing salmon a short distance down stream, his naked form poised upon a beam which projected over the river, his eyes riveted, and spear uplifted, waiting for...

Not so the cold; that commanded entire respect, whether carefully abstracting our animal heat through the bed of gravel on which we lay, or brooding over us hungry for those ple...

Thankful that we had not assisted at one of these engulfments, we scrambled on up the smooth, roof-like slope, steadying our ascent by the tripod legs used as alpine stock. When...

All the morning he had warned me most impressively to count myself favored if a certain bridge over Bishop’s Creek should not sink under us and cast me upon wild waters. Rightly...

To explain most simply why Mr. Goodyear saw the true Mount Whitney when he reached the summit of my peak of 1871, it is only necessary to state that he had a clear day, and the...

A week after my climb I lay on the desert sand at the foot of the Inyo Range and looked up at Mount Whitney, realizing all its grand individuality, and saw the drifting clouds i...