Then, as I went on further and further into
details, their faces began to glow, and I offered to guide them to it,
while they declared that they would gladly follow, far or near,
whithersoever I could spare the time to lead them.
Since storms might come breaking down through the fine weather at any
time, burying the colors in snow, and cutting off the artists' retreat,
I advised getting ready at once.
I led them out of the valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls, thence over
the main dividing ridge to the Big Tuolumne Meadows, by the old Mono
trail, and thence along the upper Tuolumne River to its head. This was
my companions' first excursion into the High Sierra, and as I was almost
always alone in my mountaineering, the way that the fresh beauty was
reflected in their faces made for me a novel and interesting study. They
naturally were affected most of all by the colors--the intense azure of
the sky, the purplish grays of the granite, the red and browns of dry
meadows, and the translucent purple and crimson of huckleberry bogs; the
flaming yellow of aspen groves, the silvery flashing of the streams, and
the bright green and blue of the glacier lakes.
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