Later, However, A Trail Could Not Have Been Broken For A
Horse, And Some Of The Camp Furniture Would Have Had To Be Abandoned.
On the fifth day I returned to Sisson's, and from that comfortable
base made excursions, as the weather permitted,
To the Black Butte, to
the foot of the Whitney Glacier, around the base of the mountain, to
Rhett and Klamath Lakes, to the Modoc region and elsewhere, developing
many interesting scenes and experiences.
But the next spring, on the other side of this eventful winter, I saw
and felt still more of the Shasta snow. For then it was my fortune to
get into the very heart of a storm, and to be held in it for a long
time.
On the 28th of April [1875] I led a party up the mountain for the
purpose of making a survey of the summit with reference to the
location of the Geodetic monument. On the 30th, accompanied by Jerome
Fay, I made another ascent to make some barometrical observations, the
day intervening between the two ascents being devoted to establishing
a camp on the extreme edge of the timberline. Here, on our red
trachyte bed, we obtained two hours of shallow sleep broken for
occasional glimpses of the keen, starry night. At two o'clock we
rose, breakfasted on a warmed tin-cupful of coffee and a piece of
frozen venison broiled on the coals, and started for the summit. Up
to this time there was nothing in sight that betokened the approach of
a storm; but on gaining the summit, we saw toward Lassen's Butte
hundreds of square miles of white cumuli boiling dreamily in the
sunshine far beneath us, and causing no alarm.
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