After
dark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been built, we began
to make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at the least,
while I concluded to make an excursion in the mean time to the untouched
summit of Ritter.
It was now about the middle of October, the springtime of snow-flowers.
The first winter-clouds had already bloomed, and the peaks were strewn
with fresh crystals, without, however, affecting the climbing to any
dangerous extent. And as the weather was still profoundly calm, and the
distance to the foot of the mountain only a little more than a day, I
felt that I was running no great risk of being storm-bound.
Mount Ritter is king of the mountains of the middle portion of the High
Sierra, as Shasta of the north and Whitney of the south sections.
Moreover, as far as I know, it had never been climbed. I had explored
the adjacent wilderness summer after summer, but my studies thus far had
never drawn me to the top of it. Its height above sea-level is about
13,300 feet, and it is fenced round by steeply inclined glaciers, and
canons of tremendous depth and ruggedness, which render it almost
inaccessible. But difficulties of this kind only exhilarate the
mountaineer.
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