Thus the map location on which Mr. Hoffmann relied, and of which, in 1871, I took copy, to identify the peak, was vitiated in a way neither of us could have foreseen, and a serious error might have crept into current geography but for the timely visit of Mr. Goodyear.
Mr. Hoffmann stands clear of blame in this matter. Upon my shoulders and those of my particeps criminis, the storm and the local magnetic attraction, it all rests.
We sat for some time in that silence which even the rudest natures pay as an unconscious tribute to the august presence of a great mountain, and then began again the march toward Mount Whitney. Seaman, who had started ill, here felt so painfully the effect of altitude that we urged him to struggle no further against dizziness and nausea, but to return, which he did with reluctance. We parted at the very crown of the ridge, on the verge of a gulf which plunges down from Mount Whitney to Owen’s Valley. Knowles, who is a sort of chamois, kept his head splendidly, and together we clambered round and up to the crest of a bold needle about fourteen thousand four hundred feet high, from which the discouraging truth dawned upon us that it was impossible to surmount the three sharp pinnacles which lay between us and the delicately sculptured crest beyond.
To the right and below, three thousand feet down from our tower, I could trace the line of my attempted climb of 1864, to where it disappeared around a projecting buttress at the foot of the great precipice, which forms the eastern face of Mount Whitney and the subordinate pinnacles to the south.
To the left, through crags and splintered monoliths, we could catch a glimpse of a deep glacier basin lying west of Mount Whitney, enclosing great sweeps of débris and numerous vivid blue tarns.
Between the minarets we could also see portions of the southwest slope of Mount Whitney, which was evidently a smooth, accessible face, and the one of all others to attempt. But the day was already too far advanced to leave us the remotest hope of even reaching the glacier basin west of Mount Whitney, and we decided to return to camp.
Before beginning our wearisome march I sketched the outline of the Mount Whitney group, which, so far as I know, differs from any other cluster of peaks. The Sierra here is a bold wall with an almost perpendicular front of about three thousand feet, which is crowned by sharp turrets, having a tendency to lean out over the eastern gulf; these are properly the crests of great, rib-like buttresses, which jut from the general surface of the granite front.
Mount Whitney itself springs up and out like the prow of a sharp ocean steamer. Southward along the summit my sketch is of a confused region of rough-hewn granite obelisks and towers, all remarkable for the deep shattering to which the rock has been subjected. It is a region which may even yet suffer considerable perceptible change, since a single winter’s frost and snow must dislodge numberless blocks from the crests and flanks of the whole group. Indeed, at the time of my visit, notably the period of least snow and frost, we often heard the sharp rattle of falling débris.
We varied our course homeward by climbing along a lateral ridge, whence we could look into the Mount Whitney basin, and here we were favored by a fine view, chiefly pleasing to us because the whole accessible slope of the peak came out, unobscured by intervening ridges.
It was evident that we must find a mule pass through the granite waves, from our present camp round into the great glacier basin, or else plan our next attempt with provisions and blankets on our backs and an uncertain number of days’ clambering over the intervening cañons to the foot of our peak.