Next morning, the artists went heartily to their work and I to mine.
Former experiences had given good reason to know that passionate storms,
invisible as yet, might be brooding in the calm sun-gold; therefore,
before bidding farewell, I warned the artists not to be alarmed should I
fail to appear before a week or ten days, and advised them, in case a
snow-storm should set in, to keep up big fires and shelter themselves as
best they could, and on no account to become frightened and attempt to
seek their way back to Yosemite alone through the drifts.
My general plan was simply this: to scale the canon, wall, cross over to
the eastern flank of the range, and then make my way southward to the
northern spurs of Mount Ritter in compliance with the intervening
topography; for to push on directly southward from camp through the
innumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis of
the range, however interesting, would take too much time, besides being
extremely difficult and dangerous at this time of year.
All my first day was pure pleasure; simply mountaineering indulgence,
crossing the dry pathways of the ancient glaciers, tracing happy
streams, and learning the habits of the birds and marmots in the groves
and rocks.
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