A HARD PULL | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 32.

A HARD PULL.

Meantime the sturdy ones are beginning to encounter the only really formidable objective part of the whole ascent. The path leads across a steeply-inclined ravine of snow and ice, topped a half mile higher by a cliff of loose concrete. The water trickles over the face of this cliff at midday, slacking somewhat the cement which binds the small mass together. The next night's freeze presses many small bowlders and other stones out of their bed. Then when next morning's sun shines bright upon them the frost's hold is broken and the stones come tumbling off the face of the cliff and go rolling and bouncing at a furious rate down the mountain. It is for half an hour or so, at some times in the summer, a really sharp bombardment. Some of the stones are of quite good size and attain a fearful velocity in their descent. Some which are thinnish and flat go whizzing edge-wise past the dismayed pilgrim with a noise like a big buzz-saw, fairly fanning his face with their wind and sending off upon him showers of fragments like to inky hailstones. It is for only a few moments that one is exposed to the enfilading bombardment, however. But those few moments, it is needless to remark, are devoted strictly to business and not at all to either sight-seeing or making notes.

After some three hours' sharp work the advance climbers have—while the rest are straggling all the way along for a mile below—reached a huge protuberance of rock which stands out on the sky-line of the mountain, and is called the Thumb. This point is the Rubicon of the trip. This being reached and passed most persons get courage to push on to the final peak, 1,500 feet higher in altitude and about a mile and a half in distance. The views begin now to be superb. They are, in fact, better from the lower points like this than from the summit. From that great height everything is flattened under the eyes. All detail is largely lost. The vast width of view is indeed most impressive at the top; but from the Thumb the details of river, hill, mountain, and valley, are very clear cut and well defined. The view takes in Lassen's butte, eighty miles to the south, the Marysville butte, still further away, with glimpses of the tawny Sacramento Valley beyond. Scott Mountains stand in front, with the Salmon, Castle Rock, and various minor ranges. At the far east loom the Sierra Nevadas, and a wide vista opens over Eastern Oregon away into Washington Territory. Captain Jack's old stamping-ground, the lava beds, lies not very far away in the foreground, while Lake Klamath, Goose, and Tule Lakes gleam like silver

shields in the fair morning light. Closer still at hand are glimpses of the beautiful McCloud and Strawberry Valleys. The latter nestles green, warm, and lovely 10,000 feet below us; while beyond, casting their shadow over the emerald lobe which they nourish, rise the picturesque Castle Rocks. It is a prospect never to be forgotten, and amply rewards all the labor and inconvenience involved in gaining it.