MOUNTAINEERING IN THE
SIERRA NEVADA
MOUNTAINEERING IN THE
SIERRA NEVADA
BY
CLARENCE KING
“Altiora petimus”
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1902
{iv}
Copyright, 1871, by
JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
———
Copyright, 1902, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
{v}
To
JOSIAH DWIGHT WHITNEY
AND HIS STAFF
MY COMRADES OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CALIFORNIA
THESE MOUNTAINEERING NOTES
ARE CORDIALLY INSCRIBED
NOTE
This book, originally published in 1871, has long been out of print,though in constant demand. Its publication was discontinued owing to thedesire of the author to make certain emendations in the text, a workthat the arduous activities of a professional scientific life left himno leisure to perform. A few changes, indicated by him, have been made.Otherwise the text of the present edition is that of the last, therevised and enlarged edition of 1874. Only the fastidiousness to whichthe extraordinary literary quality of the book is itself due, couldsuggest further modification of what is here republished with the motiveof restoring to print and circulation a work too perfect in form and oftoo rare a quality to be allowed to lapse. It is accordingly with theview of renewing the accessibility of a genuine classic of Americanliterature that the present edition is presented.
FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
* * * * * * *
Mountaineers will realize, from these descriptions of Sierra climbs, howfew dangers we encountered which might not have been avoided by time andcaution. Since the uncertain perils of glacier work and snow copings donot exist in California, except on the northeast flank of Mount Shasta,our climbs proved safe and easy in comparison with the more seriousAlpine ascents. And now that the topography of the higher Sierra hasbeen all explored by the Geological Survey, nearly every peak is foundto have an accessible side. Our difficulties and our joys were those ofthe pioneer.
My own share in the great work of exploring the Sierra under ProfessorWhitney has been small indeed beside that of the senior assistants ofthe Survey, Professors Brewer and Hoffmann. Theirs were the long, hardyears of patient labor, theirs the real conquest of a great terraincognita; and if in these chapters I have not borne repeated witness totheir skill and courage, it is not because I have failed in warmappreciation, but simply because my own{x} mountaineering has always beenheld by me as of slight value, and not likely to be weighed againsttheir long-continued service.
There are turning-points in