“Three miles—three hours,” said Bennie. “A mile an hour is what the Appalachian Club allows. We’ll be there at half-past nine.”
“Getting sure again, are you?” said his uncle. “This isn’t Mount Washington, where the Appalachian Club climbs. This is Scott’s Peak. It isn’t made of granite, but it’s a spur volcano spit up out of the side of old Mazama, and it’s about 2,500 feet of nice, soft pumice dust from here on.”
It was.
Once over the first scramble up the side of the ravine, they settled down to a steady plod in the soft, volcanic stuff. Their feet sank deep into it. The pitch was greater than it looked, too, and every time they threw their weight on to the forward foot, it sank back a way. Sometimes there were patches of snow they could get on, for partial relief. But mostly this side of the mountain had melted off, and it was just a long, weary, back-breaking grind up the pumice. Did you ever climb a steep pile of sand? Anyhow, you have walked in the deep, dry, soft sand above the tide mark on a beach. You know what hard work it is. The climb up Scott was just like that, only more so. One hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, and part of five, with many a rest, and the sun getting hotter and hotter, before they reached the summit.
“Well, boys, this is the highest you’ve been yet,” said Mr. Stone. “Eight thousand nine hundred and thirty-two feet.”
“Wish there was a tree we could shin to make it an even 9,000,” said Bennie.
Dumplin’ wiped the sweat from his face, and collapsed on the ground, panting. “I wouldn’t climb a barber’s pole,” he announced.
“Well, you can see most of eastern Oregon without sitting up,” his father laughed.
This was certainly true. From the top of Scott, they could look eastward for a hundred miles, over a great plain almost as flat and bare as the sea, a sage brush desert. North and south they could look mile after mile in either direction along the tumbled, snowy world of the Cascade range. And just below them, to the west, they looked down 3,000 feet into the blue hole of Crater Lake.
“There’s most room enough for a feller to breathe, out here,” Bennie remarked. Then he started to drink from his canteen, and discovered it was empty.