lount Shasta Journal 1917- 1923

by Edward Stuhl J MOUNT SHASTA JOURNAL. 1917 - 1923

by

EDWARD STUHL.

Association for Northern California Records and Research Chico, California 1989 A Word about this Text—

We have edited this manuscript as gently as possible. To preserve the integrity of the text written by Edward Stuhl, whenever clarity was not an issue, we have allowed Mr. Stuhl's original spelling, grammar, word choice, punctuation, and capitalization to stand — such as, "I set in the cold," and, "optical delusion." We have silently corrected obvious typographical errors (e.g., "ticket"for "ticked") and occasionally some words or phrases where his intent was clear, but the clarity of the passage was an issue (e.g., "stacks of hay" for "stakes of hay"). Any other changes, such as the addition of omitted letters, are indicated within square brackets. The original manuscripts are available for study in the Meriam Library's Special Resources Department at California State University, Chico.

—Ramona Flynn and Sarah E. Newton INTRODUCTION

When he set out on a 350-mile trip to Mount Shasta in June 1917, little did Ed Stuhl realize that he was beginning a pilgrimage that would consume his interest for the remaining sixty seven years of his life.

Born in 1887, Stuhl spent his early years hiking and climbing the Austrian Alps. In 1912 he climbed his first American mountain, Mount Tamalpais. In the years before his first trip to Mount Shasta, he climbed Mount Tamalpais several times and went to the top of Mount St Helena.

This volume contains accounts of StuhPs two earliest trips to Mount Shasta, traveling by railroad, foot, wagon, and car. Although German was his native language, he writes well in English and these accounts are interestingly and humorously told. "Even a blast of profanity did not stir the stubbornness of my iron mule," he wrote, describing the 7-year-old Ford, "Lizzie", he took on his second trip.

He had planned to climb Mount Shasta on his first visit, but experience told him that he was unprepared for this mountain. On his second visit he gave up at 13,COO feet, when he realized that he had underestimated Mount Shasta again, and he came to the conclusion that windproof clothes, an ice-axe, and lined leather gloves were needed. But he did not give up. In the years that followed he climbed Mount Shasta twenty two times, and boasted that he had "hiked and skied practically every possible inch of the mountain, including the five living glaciers". Stuhl climbed most of the mountains in California, Oregon, and Washington. For each climb, he kept a journal, detailing his experiences and describing the flora and fauna found there. In addition he made watercolor paintings of the wildflowers he saw, including all but three of the 207 flowers he found on Mount Shasta.

The Edward Stuhl Collection of which these journals are a part, is housed in the Special Collections Department of the Meriam Library at California State University, Chico. The Association for Northern California Records and Research is grateful for permission to publish these first two episodes of Ed Stuhl's lifelong love affair with Mount Shasta. Gazelle Edgewood m. Shasta x

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REDDING

ClAfri Mount Shasta area, circa 1917 -1923. Edward Stuhl First Visit to Mount Shasta.

June-July, 1917. There looms mysteriously a snow covered great mountain, a giant extinct volcano, somewhere in the north of California. But in spite of its bigness it is little known to the proud sons and daughters of the Golden State. It is surprising the difficulties one meets in getting any information out of everyday people about their own native country. Best they can do is to send one to the railroad office and there one will learn that a 350 mile ride over the Shasta Route will deposit the curious traveler at the foot of the mountain.

According to my map, Mount Shasta is situated between 41° and 42° north latitude and between 122° and 123° longitude west of Greenwich, near the head waters of the Sacramento River. Its elevation is given to be 14,380 feet. From Beadeker's Nordamerika, Edition 1912, pp. 517, I learnt the following: "Der Mt. Shasta, 4408 m, 19 km von Sisson, ist von hier zu ersteigen. Hin und zuruck 30-40 Stunden; Fuhrer und Pferde im Hotel. Kosten per Person $15-20. Ubernachten in Sisson's Camp, 2745 m, gleich oberhalb der Baumgrenze. Auf dem Hauptgipfel befinded sich eine Triangulirungs Pyramide. Mt Shasta ist ein machtiger erloschener Vulcan, dessen vulcanischer Character am Crater oder West-Gipfel, 3930 m, deutlich erkenn- bar ist, wo sich ein 1200 m breiter und 750 m tiefer Crater offhet. Am Hauptgipfel befinden sich auch heisse Quellen und Fumarolen. Die Aussicht ist uberaus grossartig." [Mt. Shasta, 4,408 meters, 19 kilometers from Sisson, can be climbed from here. There and back 30-40 hours. Guide and horses at the hotel. Cost per person $15- 20. Overnight stay at Sisson's Camp, 2,745 meters, just above the tree line. On the main peak is a triangular pyramid. Mt. Shasta is a powerful extinct volcano, the

1 volcanic character of which can be distinctly seen at the crater or west peak, 3,930 meters, where there is a crater that is 1,200 meters wide and 750 meters deep. On the main peak are also hot springs and fumaroles. The view is exceedingly splendid].

Furthermore, in the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento I saw a painting, 'Mount Shasta* by William Keith. It presents a noble snowy peak, towering over sunny meadows and above shadowy forests into a cerulean sky.

No more 'information' do I need; such little is enough to set out exploring for myself.

June 28, 1917.

The crossing of the San Francisco Bay at that early morning hour when the golden sunbeams radiated from beyond the hills of Mount Diablo was a fitful prelude to the trip. There is a certain fascination in that morning bustle across the bay, of coming and going and meeting of ferry boats accompanied by graceful gliding and screeching flocks of sea gulls. And later follows another thrill, when the entire Southern Pacific train is divided into three sections and pushed on a giant ferry boat, monster locomotive and all, to cross the Carquinez Strait of the Sacramento. Then follows much monotony when the long snake-like train speeds through the marshes and farm lands of the Sacramento Valley and soon one wishes our dear sun had left about one half of its rays beyond that Don Diablo mountain.

After a few hours the Marysville Buttes begin to loom up isolated from the middle of the plains. They are a grotesque rugged group of sharp peaks and connecting ridges of volcanic origin and leave much thought for wonderment and imagination. Then follow more endless grain fields, becoming orchards, and beconing orchards and broad sun-baked steppes over which the heated atmosphere visibly vibrates. The distant mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range are almost veiled from view by a bluish haze of humidity. And what a heat!; no matter how fast the train flies, there is no cooling from the wind, it blows as hot as the breath from a furnace.

On crossing the elevated rolling dry plains of Tehama and Shasta counties the scenery undergoes a pleasant change. Dark groves of stately oak greet the eye; the atmosphere is clearer; the mountain ranges are closing in from both sides. There are the soft contoured heights of the Yolla Bolly Mountains to the west and to the east, above the red Sierra foothills, rear the sharp crags of Mount Lassen to an elevation of 10,437 feet. Since 1914 Lassen is pronounced the only living volcano in the United States. Reports of Lassen's activities reach the world from the town of Red Bluff, a point of convenient observation; unfortunately as 1 passed there no spectacular column of smoke was visible over the grim peak.

At five in the afternoon the train reached the town of Redding situated at the termination of the big Sacramento Valley and I was glad to escape into the open. My ticket called only for this 260 mile ride and 1 did not renew it as the mountains were close at hand and I was determined to cover the remaining 70 to 80 miles to Mount Shasta humbly "per pedes apostolorum". Therefore 1 shipped the dunnage bag, containing blankets, clothes and a few books, ahead, while to my back I strapped my good rucksack and with a pair of well hobnailed boots on my feet the world was mine. Immediately upon leaving Redding to the north a striking view unfolded before my gazing eye as I suddenly stood on the rim of the mesa high above the Sacramento River. The elevated valley floor around Redding, with its park-like groves of stately oaks, is bedded snugly into the crotch where that Northern California mountain vastness divides in two mountain systems, the Coast Range on the west and the Sierra Nevada on the east, both forming the great interior valley of the Sacramento. And here the fine river breaks its ties from its mountain home. Relieved from a narrow rocky canyon it spreads wide and smooth and glistening, almost like a mountain lake, hemmed in by luscious green willows and cottonwoods along the shores.

The road dropped down the high embankment to a lofty big-arched concrete bridge, crossing the river, to rise on the other side up into the hills again, while the railroad, I noticed, closely followed the river towards the canyon. Soon I found myself in the red-soiled, hot and dry hills among manzanita and buckeye shrub, gnarled live oak and graceful digger pines. Looking back in the direction whence I came I beheld a most enchanting scene: there spread broad and far the golden-yellow fields of the valley, dotted with dark groves of oak, divided by the blue and silvery ribbon of the river, on the west side partly overshadowed by the Coast Range and on the east side illuminated by the peak of Lassen, towering high above the purplish fading Sierra, glowing in the crimson light of the setting sun.

When darkness set in I began to look for a suitable spot to camp but soon abandoned the idea as no spring nor brook was to be found in any of the ravines of this high and dry mesa land. I had plenty of food but the canteen was nearly empty which meant, after this hot afternoon walk, a thirsty night. Therefore I prepared to keep on walking till I came to water, all night if need be. But after another mile I saw a little house, with smoke curling from its chimney, standing in a clearing near the road. Here I knocked on the door and telling a young women my plight I did ask to be put up for the night for pay; she thought that could be arranged and met her husband's cordial consent. He had just arrived home from one of the copper mines down in the Sacramento canyon. Before long we sat around the supper table. There was a little boy too, a real nice and pretty child with rosy cheeks and golden curls, a living Raphael creation. Now by the bright light of a gas lamp I recognized some pictures of French war heroes along the walls of the room; mine and my host's eyes met, understanding and smiling. When I expressed regret for our nations being at each others throat he gallantly waved and laughed the peculiar situation off, exclaiming "we are friends here in free Amerique". Thus the bloody conflict was settled in this little mountain home and the evening was well spent in conversation about the nearby Kennet copper mines where my host was a miner but chose to live miles away up here among the woods, out of range of the deadly fumes from the copper smelters. For the night I was put up on a cot in the garret.

June 29, 1917.

There was early breakfast, for the miner had miles to go to his day's work while my work was to make many miles a day. But alas, these good people would not receive one cent for what they did. Fortunately I had oranges in the knapsack and these I rolled into the lap of the little boy whose large blue eyes grew still larger at sight of the heavenly fruit, rare in these backwood hills. Then as I tramped along my lone road I pondered over the German proverb: "Besser einen Franzosen als Feind, wie einen Deutschen als Freund". [Better a Frenchman as an enemy, than a German as a friend].

It was a glorious morning, ideal to wander; I felt like putting my arms around these mountains. Arriving upon an open hillside, I had an unobstructed view of the Sacramento Canyon far below; there the river rolled and eddied its greenish waters through a narrow bed carved out from the solid rock. Also the surrounding hights were rocky and conspicuously red and sparsely wooded. But one spot especially, several miles in circumference showed up red and completely denuded of every shrub and tree, and there were the funnels of the smelters of the copper mines that breathe such deadly fumes. Soon the road wound down hill into the canyon and crossing the Sacramento over an old wooden bridge amidst the mining town Kennet, a crammed affair of wooden houses. In the "General Store" I bought some more grub for the long hike ahead.

Now I followed one of the oldest mountain roads in California, the stage road between Redding and Yreka, over which in earlier days gold miners, settlers and adventurers for northern California and Oregon traveled. There is romance along this old Oregon trail, but nowadays the road is almost abandoned and lonesome for every respectable traveler, and even the Hobo, travels up-to-date fashion by rail. Well, I was glad to have the lone old road all to myself as it wound along through the canyon, rising and declining along the steep rocky hot slopes, some times several hundred feet above the river. I [would] always rather [see] trains running than riding on them, especially among scenery like this. Here the railroad follows closely the river, often crossing it over lofty bridges and oftener cutting short curves by way of gaping tunnels. Here an approaching train might not be seen before its near appearance, but the reechoing sound of its whistle be heard a long time and miles ahead.

The mountain slopes on both sides of the narrow valley were steep and in places rocky and lower down covered mostly with manzanita, live oak, Oregon oak and Digger pine, while higher up other pines, firs and cedar began to appear.

Here in this mountain vastness a great pleasant change has come over the Sacramento River when compared with its sluggish tired life out there in the low-land. One really wonders whether this is the same stream that, dwindled down from navigable size, now rushes wild and rustling over rocks and through narrows, forming whirling eddies and restful still emerald pools. A few miles upstream from Kennet the Pitt River enters the Sacramento from the east and I wondered why the Pitt is not the chief and name- bearing stream as it carries several times [more] water than the Sacramento [does] and from its sources in the Warner Mountains covers three times as much tenitory [as] does the Sacramento who really is the smaller tributary. But from the confluence of the Pitt River upwards the Sacramento River is the prettier stream as it, perfectly clear and beautiful, flows in its hallowed furrowed bed of solid rock. Quaint symmetrical, tall, lush-green tussocks of water grass adorn the shores and many an isolated boulder in the middle of the stream. And in every one of the many deep emerald pools fine big trout were standing motionless, barely noticeable, playing their fins.

The temptation of these pools was irresistible. I scrambled down the slope, slid off the knapsack, shed my sweaty khakies and with a mighty headlong splash scared the trout people out of their siesta. Oh, that was great fun, but the water was cold enough that I needed a warming up; therefore I spread myself upon the clean hot sand at the bottom of a trough-shaped hollow in the rock. Thus basking in the sun and taking plunges in turn I enjoyed myself for three hours. I had walked since 5:30 in the morning. Cooking a can of beans also was performed in this recess and while I sat busily eating, suddenly I felt a swish and the slick cold touch of a snake passing over my nude back. I made a fancy jump, nearly spilling the beans; but it was nothing to be alarmed about; merely a harmless pretty garter snake having its mind set on eating as it leapt from rock to rock, using my back as a set-off in the rather far jump. The snake caught the little lizard. I saw it writhe in the snake's mouth.

In the afternoon, back on the road again, I was surprised to be overtaken by an automobile, and more so as its occupants, two Italians, invited me for a "lift". Automobiling was not in my favour as I was out for a walk, but I had not the heart to turn down the well-meant offer of these kindly fellows; so I dumped my knapsack into the car and jumped after and off we went. It was a wild rough ride not soon to be forgotten. That road, with its ruts, chuck-holes, bumps and rocks, was made for five-foot wagon wheels and not for rubber tires. 1 must admit that the man on the wheel was a good driver who managed to keep up a remarkable speed and ease regardless of short turns, steep grades, narrow passages, and bridges over creeks and side canyons.

As the top of the car was folded back I enjoyed an unobstructed view of the sceneries we passed in conjuncture with plenty of fresh mountain air, hot sunshine and dust. Soon cone-bearing trees, different species of pines and firs, became abundant and predominant over the oak, forming stretches of cool and shady forests. Also thickly wooded ravines with lively

8 creeks at their bottom descended from all around the mountains, and farther up the Sacramento canyon itself alternately widened to little valley openings with green meadows and here and there a small mountain farm. At one place there was a row of cherry trees loaded with dark red and black chenies beconing from the lusceous foliage, alluring to [me and] one of the greatest joys of my boyhood.

We also drove through a few settlements, the first being Lamoine, a lumber-camp-town situated at the junction of Slate Creek Canyon. Every house and shack was built of lumber and painted ugly red, and the nucleus of the place was one of these smoking, humming and screaming monsters called a sawmill, able to devour a forest in as many days as it took years to grow. Here the fine trees came, cut up into logs, floating and shooting down a flume from the mountain, into the mill pond, and there they lay converted into high piles of lumber. It certainly is an interesting and manly industry, but I am sorry for the trees. I was told that this outfit is merely a toy-thing in comparison with other mills in this district.

The next place we came too was Castella, populated by a happy crowd of vacationists gathered around the little hotel and the bar. One would think that those fugitives from the cities and hot low-lands would roam all over these surrounding mountains and through the woods, but apparently they are nature-lovers of a different type. It is the fine trout in the Sacramento River that attracts most of them, offering worthwile sport. Indeed, this part of the Sacramento is renown for its fine Rainbow Trout fishing. For my part I [would] rather see the pretty fish happy and alive in their crystalline element; of course in this silly viewpoint I stand alone, for everybody possibly able catches trout, admires their beauty, throws them into the frying pan and eats them for mere love. Castle Crags

."Glacier-carved mass of pinkish-white granite" Here we made a short stop and 1 had to drink with my Italian friends a glass of beer. But soon after leaving Castella I begged to be let out of the car. The scenery was getting too great to be hurled past, as there hove in sight, high above the forest into the sky, the Castle Crags. My thought at the first impression was of the Dolomites. But no, this is California and a most picturesque glacier-carved mass of pinkish-white granite. There are walls, serrated ridges, towers, needles and rounded domes, a rock cathedral of stern greatness and beauty, a paradise for the alpine climber. These Castle Crags are an eastward extending promontory of the Trinity Mountains west of the Sacramento River. The highest pinnacles rise about 3,000 feet above the valley floor or 5,000 feet above sea level.

With such grand rocks before me and clear murmuring brooks, green meadows, and dark pine forests all around me I discovered myself of being finally at home again and very happy. In cozy nooks under trees along creek sites and in the river bank I saw campers with tiny tents and smoke- curling fires and blackened coffee pots and pans. What an ideal life! Do my boyhood dreams come true? Just at eight o'clock it began to get dark and cold. Soon I too had a little fire with my blackened soup pot simmering over it and cheese, bread and apples perfected the frugal supper. Then, with knapsack for a pillow, wrapped in my good old weather cape, smoking a sweet pipe I lay dreaming under the fir tree among whose lace work of branches the stars twinkled from heaven. In the mountains and woods at home again.

10 June 30, 1917.

In this latitude and altitude canvas and woolen blankets are the only means to keep the out-of-door sleeper warm and comfortable at night. Of this fact I became fully aware after two o'clock in the morning when biting cold took hold of toes and nose; the only remedy was to get up and rekindle the fire and cook breakfast. This resolutely accomplished, at 4:30 already I exercised my stiffened limbs vigorously along the road.

By the time the sun was well up and lifted the nightly chill and streamers of fog from the bottom of the canyon, arrived in Dunsmuir. Dunsmuir is quite a resort town that boasts of the "best water in the world"; besides of fine fish, fresh air, smoke from the round house and an "Opera House". The town is tightly crammed into the narrow canyon; river, railroad, and the three streets run parallel, the latter upon terraces on the mountain side. A new train-load of tourists just arrived, and what a display of gaudy dresses and parasols, to protect dainty complections from bad sunshine, and oh such perfumes to mix with mountain air and locomotive smoke.

On the other side of town a lofty bridge across the rocky canyon, with the young Sacramento River at its bottom, delivered me back pure nature. Now the road began noticeably to climb out of the canyon towards a higher valley and open country. From my map and railroad table I learned that between Dunsmuir and Sisson in less than fifteen miles distance 1,271 feet elevation had to be gained. No wonder the locomotives put up such a fuss of puffing and whistling and had to add a pusher at the end of the trains. Farther up I came to another resort, more quiet and less overrun than the last; Shasta Springs, the very place from where the bottled Shasta water is shipped to the outside world.

11 Around here the forest was composed chiefly of very large pines and stately firs, but another half mile farther up it parted, giving space to an open, chaparrel covered stretch of country. And in these surroundings I was surprised by one of the grandest sights I ever beheld. A picture unforgetable to the last moment of ones life. There it rose above the canyon, framed by dark forest-clad hill sides, bathed in sun light; was it a mirage or a fantastic upbuilding of rose tinted, silver edged, blue shaded clouds? A vision suspended in midair. I doubted its reality, but it was truly Mount Shasta.

I had not seen a real mountain for many years, and such a mountain with eternal snow and probably glacier ice on; and of such hight and dimensions, majesty and beauty, making faint any attempt to describe it. Almost awed and spellbound I settled on a rock by the wayside and let the knapsack slip from shoulder to the ground. I rested and looked and wondered. I felt like when first I saw the sea from the height of the Karst plateau, the Adriatic with the setting sun sinking into her golden flood; or when, after a school year's longing and days of walking over the Bavarian plain, I greeted the Stubaier Alps from Tyrol. Those are impressions to settle deep. And here 1 set in California at the foot and in the spell of Shasta; old dreams and new longings arose, the love for the mountains of a stray mountaineer; the restless impulse for adventure and conquest, and conquer I will this mountain.

For a while noble trees hid the mountain again until I finally came out in that open, sunny alpine valley, named Strawbeny Valley, or more popularly known as Sisson Valley, over which Shasta towers on the east side, flanking its entire length. Here the altitude at the railway station is given as 3,335 feet above the sea. On the west side the

12 long ridge of Mount Eddy rises to 9,159 feet, being the highest peak in the Trinity Mountains. On the northern margin of the valley a conspicuously pointed, bare and black appearing volcanic cone rises to 6,250 feet elevation. This is Black Butte. To the south the serrated ridges and the rounded dome of the Castle Crags are still visible, but the gigantic bulk of Shasta dwarfs all this surrounding mountains to insignificant hills, for Shasta's timberline itself reached almost the height of Mount Eddy, while above it Shasta's glistening dome rears another five thousand feet into the blue sky.

Mount Shasta, seen from the west, from Strawberry Valley, reveals an entire different aspect as seen from the south. From the south it appears to be one single pyramid while viewed from the west it proves to be a double peak; Shastina, the lower peak, juts from Shasta's northwest slope bearing the shape of a typical truncated volcanic cone, with a smaller cone projecting above its crater-rim. The different elevations of Shasta as given on different maps are confusing. On the maps in my possession the elevations are as following: California railroad map, by Sachse, 14,380 feet and Siskiyou County map, by Denny, 14,511 feet; both maps are supposedly compiled from standard data. On the latter map the elevation of Shastina is given as 12,433 feet approximately 2.000 feet lower than Shasta proper. The opinion that Shasta is the highest mountain in Uncle Sam's country is stoutly supported by residents living in this district.

Strawberry Valley is a lovely spot, green and pretty as many a vale in the Alps. Its lucious meadows, flowery and brook-irrigated, are enlivened with bell-jingling cows and dotted with shingle roofed little farms, and fringed and closed in by dark, shadowy pine and fir forests. But the east side of the valley, all along and at least one mile up the

13 "At the foot and in the spell of Shasta" slope of Shasta, is deforested and covered with chapanal which from some distance appears like the velvety covering of a mountain meadow. Here the axman did his work and fire completed the job. Above this brush-waste starts the dense Shasta timber belt reaching the altitude of 8,000 feet or over. Strawberry Valley has an abundance of wonderful water, a generous gift of Shasta; but the Sacramento River comes from Mount Eddy and not from Shasta, as local residents try to make strangers believe by telling that the "Big Spring", at the foot of Spring Hill, is the source of the Sacramento. The Sacramento River is formed by three branches: South, middle, and North Forks; the first two drain several small lakelets on the east slope of the Trinities and the latter has its spring immediately at the foot of Mount Eddy. The river has a wild mountain valley of its own and where it leaves the Trinity Mountains it turns south into the deep nanow Box Canyon, thus missing Strawberry Valley entirely. Big Spring Creek and Cold Creek, both from Shasta, are tributaries of Wagon Valley Creek which joins the Sacramento southward of Strawberry Valley. A little study of the topography and a vision into the geologic past will tell that at one time Shasta reflected its features in a fine big glacial lake that filled this valley.

An old farmer on a spring wagon overtook me and offered a ride uptown. I gladly accepted and did ask the friendly gent what the covered up load was back in the wagon. "Strawbenies!, the finest in California; they do fine up here in this climate; they come in season when those in the lower country go out, and they all get shipped below".

Sisson was a weatherbeaten one street town composed of grayish wooden houses with porches in the front and lean-to shacks in the rear. But Muglers Brewery was built solidly of native stone and spread that well known aroma

14 of malt and hops over its neighborhood. And there was Schuler's, one big general store and the Park Hotel, and I counted not less than eleven saloons of which Muglers Saloon was of interest as a local museum; not only good local brew was to be had there, but its walls were decorated with a large collection of mountain game of the locality, including the massive skull of a Bighorn Sheep found in the snow high up on Mount Shasta. In spite of the unsurpassed spring water here, "dry-throat" seems to be the chronical ailment with these mountaineers and woodsmen who go long ways and rough trails to quench their thirst with fire water.

The first information regarding a Shasta climb ran like this: "It's a damned mountain and it takes a damned fool to climb it and find damned nothing after one gets up there". And the second information I received at the hotel ran like this: "Climbed by many; guide, horses, expense around fifty dollars". Had I started out to undertake the climb alone or with fifty dollars worth of assistance I fully would deserve all the titles and blessings of my first informant.

That Mount Shasta is no toy mountain to play with I realized at first sight and I am experienced enough mountaineer not to be deceived by its appearent smoothness nor to underestimate its dimensions and distances; nevertheless I also have to admit that Shasta does not require great skill of mountaineering. But at any rate it offers an athletic task, an endurance climb, for which I realized not to be in physical condition nor adequately equipt.

With the contents of my leather bag I was well enough fitted for traveling and camping in temperate climate and even through moderately cold nights, but I hardly could

15 have fared well in alpine altitudes alongside perpetual snow. I would have to camp under the sky, for there is no climbers hood or shelter of any sort on Shasta. Climbers camp at a place known as Horse Camp, situated at timberline, and reached over an eight mile trail from Sisson. I realized that packing an outfit of blankets, spare clothes, provisions, and utensils on my own back would be too exhausting work for that distance and altitude. Even had I hired a packer to do that part of work for me I still would be insufficiently equipped for a summit climb, as I had no wind proof coat, snowshoes, crampons, alpenstock, and snow goggles. I noticed snow to lay way down below the timber line and there must be masses of it. If deep snow is soft, snowshoes are a necessity, and so are crampons if snow is hard frozen or icy on steep slopes. Also icy gales have to be counted with at high altitudes no matter how hot the summer sun broods over the valley, and I never would tackle extensive snow fields without having dark goggles in my pocket at least, although I never experienced an attack of snow-blindness.

I was told that this time of year, being to early, was not favourable for a Shasta climb. Shasta's best season is from the middle of July to the middle of September; during that period the snow has melted to its minimum. So I did not take a headlong plunge but decided for better chances. Old Shasta will get a little older by waiting for me - while I will loiter around its neighborhood to call again some fine day.

On leaving Sisson northwards I soon came to the previously mentioned Big Spring. From a basin in the rock on the hill side it gushes forth as a marvelous stream of clear icy water, unmistakeably deriving from the snows on Shasta. It gurgles, as a beautiful little stream amidst alders, willows, leavy water-plants, tall grasses, and pretty flowers, towards the young Sacramento River.

16 From here my road began to climb again, skirting closely around the base of that rough looking, excessively steep cone of black rock, called Black Butte or Cone Mountain. Ahead I sensed a mountain devide or pass rising between Black Butte and Mount Eddy with prospects for descenting down the other side to Shasta Valley. Through this part of the country I sorrowfully had to witness the ravages of several lumber mills; but still more lamantable than their neatly sta[c]ked lumber piles and smoldering heaps of sawdust was a devastating forest fire that raged over this divide, burning, as I was told, for several weeks already. Apparently it was fought ineffectively by forest rangers and many men. Chances were that I might run into the arms of a ranger to be summoned to fight fire; such will happen if there is a shortage of men and if a tramp cannot give any particular purpose regarding his journey there is no "excuse me, sir". - Well, I would not refuse to fight fire for the sake of these beloved trees; besides it would mean new experience and healthy, though hard and hot work. However, I escaped. - For many miles the atmosphere was very hazy and for stretches thick breathtaking smoke hovered over the ground. Photos I took turned out in­ distinct. The sun hung like a red ball of fire in the sky.

During the early hot afternoon I had crossed the divide and arrived at the lumber town of Weed. Here things are done on a very large scale. I kept clear of that town as it lay a short way to the right of the road, but I stopped at the bar of an attractive looking Log-House-Inn for a little rest in the shade, a bottle of beer, a cigar, and even a look at the news in the paper. Such petty enjoyments seem too trifling to be mentioned, but, they take a different aspect to one who hiked for days with a pack on shoulders.

After leaving Weed, down the pretty valley of Boles Creek, the air was fairly clear of smoke again, and on

17 looking back 1 was surprised by a striking view of Mount Shasta. Now I saw the mountain's north-west face, its features being entirely different as it nearly took on the shape typical to a symmetric volcanic cone, though its secondary cone Shastina still reared its truncated summit in distinct outlines on the shoulder of its venerable pare[nt].

Hereabout a covered auto-truck overtook me and its driver kindly offered a ride. Again I thought it not a bad idea to ease my feet for a few miles, so I jumped on at the open rear end. To my surprise 1 almost bumped into a bunch of hoboes who were with their "turkeys" comfortably settled on a load of sacked potatoes. I was cheerily welcomed as "brother". - These worthies were greatly excited over an insult imposed on them in Weed. They were invited to work and, by the son-of-a-constable, were requested to do so or get locked up in the cooler. Work! - They skipped in great haste and now sped thirty miles per hour away from that oppressing idea, constable, and all. However, their narrow escape and renewed freedom had to be celebrated in the approaching village of Edgewood, and myself and the driver were cordially invited. There followed a digging through pockets and nickels and dimes were raked out and I realized it was my turn now for a swift escape. I certainly would not have minded to drink and treat a round with "brothers", had I not considered it imprudent to display my well filled pouch in their presence. So when the truck pulled up at the saloon and everybody piled out and into the barroom, I slipped unnoticed into the blacksmith shop next door and started a conversation with the horse-shoer about the roads; after a few minutes I slipped out again and made for the fields.

18 I had abandoned the main road for a field road leading straight into the Shasta Valley. After about one hour of fast walking I found myself surrounded by a curious looking landscape. The floor of the valley is a plain from which rise countless cone-shaped hills apparently of volcanic origin, none of them appearing higher than one hundred feet. The ground between these peculiar hills is in places desert-like rocky and sandy, partly covered with gray-green sage brush, and strikingly contrasting in other places, carpeted with green meadows most pleasant to the eye. There are water- filled sinks grown over with water grasses and fringed with tules and reeds along side of flats of bleak dryness composed of cracked mud and white alkali deposits. The only trees present in the flat are bright green willows, marking the water courses, and, thinly scattered over the hills, bouquet shaped, bluish-black colored junipers. Mighty Mount Shasta rears its icy head in serene solitude high above this grotesque scene. Diminutive Black Butte stands alongside like a tiny youngster, a typical little chip of the old block. - Shasta, as seen from the north from a greater, perspective-developing distance across this plain, appears to be of greater hight and bulk [than] as seen across the intervening ranges from the south. It verily casts a magic spell over the region: as one wanders along, one has to turn back to gaze at Shasta again and again.

Geologically speaking Shasta Valley is a volcanic plain, situated at an altitude between 2,953 and 2,542 feet sloping away from Mount Shasta from south to north. Also in that direction its approximate length is twenty-five miles by ten miles wide from east to west. In the south it is closed in by Mount Shasta and Mount Eddy, and in the north by 5,000 foot hills on the Klamath River. On the east and west side the valley is flanked by ridges of moderate hight and of distinct different geologic character. The ridge on the east side, deriving from Mount Shasta

19 and deviding Shasta Valley from the Modoc Lava Beds, is obviously of volcanic origin; it culminates in a truncated crater cone, the Goose Nest, elev. 8,447 feet. The ridge flanking the west side, starting from Mount Eddy, rises between the Scott River Valley and the Shasta Valley. Its stratified rocks are of sedimentary character and its highest visible summit is Skukum Rock of around 6,000 feet elevation. As seen from this direction Mount Eddy still retains some nice fields of snow on its higher northern slopes and also Eddy and not Shasta, as in the case of the Sacramento River, is the source of the Shasta River. But it remains a small, short-living stream as it breaks through these black looking hills in the north to enter the Klamath River. However, the Shasta River is the life-giver to its valley as it irrigates extensive alfalfa fields and cattle ranches.

I was the only biped in this solitude; the other roamers were cows with their calfs, steers, and a few dirt-pawing bellowing bulls. It was sultry hot with nothing but shadowless black lava heaps around, and my canteen was draind as I missed to fill it at the last settlement. I came to a gravelly creek bed with some clear water running in its center, but that water was warm and tasted swampy and cowy. — I went to sit under the bridge to study my map in the shade and found that the village of Gazelle was situated a few miles due west from where I was. To that place I had my leather bag forwarded. Piloting in a bee-line across country would not be practical on account of boggy places, so I followed my road for another mile when I came to a crossroad that led, winding among lava hills and bogs, to Gazelle, where I arrived at seven in the evening, pretty well worn as I had walked thirty-three miles.

But now I was rewarded with all the blessings a western country hotel could offer: a good bed, 6x6 feet square;

20 community wash affair with hot and cold water, roll- towels, and comb fastened with a chain to a trick mirror. - Then, after restoring myself to a civilized being I restfully stretched my deserving legs under the long populous table where steaming bowls and heaped plates were passed too- and-fro. Thus, after also my inner self was restored, I lit my sweet pipe and was ready for another little walk to get acquainted with the village. The most interesting objects I met with were numerous enormous stacks of alfalfa hay, artistically square stacked by means of derrick forks. But now to close a perfect day I witnessed the unexpected: - an Alpine Glow on Mount Shasta! - There towered that magnificent mountain above the purplish shadows of the world beneath, its snowy head blushing, unspeakably beautiful, serene like eternal peace. - Slowly the crimson glow flickerd and faded, cooling to nightly darkness; then Shasta slept.

Sunday, July 21.

Today I returned by train from Gazelle to Sisson. These twenty memorable July-days I spent among the gold mines of the Salmon Mountains. I travelled by automobile over the range to Scott Valley, Etna Mills, and from there by horse stage over the Salmon Mountains, through deep snow drifts, down the Salmon River to Sawyers Bar and Forks of Salmon. Placer and Quartz mining, on a profitable scale, "pocket hunting" and "dirt panning" is still in full swing in that wilderness, and with it romantic excitement, hope and disappointment of old goldmining days. In these twenty days I gathered enough experience to tell a lengthy tale - but not here: these notes are dedicated to Shasta only.

21 But in these twenty days Mount Shasta's snow condition apparently has not improved. From the window of my hotel room I studied the mountain's slopes through the telescope and all I saw were furrowed masses of snow and impassable rough ridges of rock. I was told that a party of four returned the day before from a summit climb. I lost no time in hunting for them and was fortunate enough to meet one of the party. From the street the young man pointed out the route that was taken and he confirmed my perception regarding the snow: it was very soft and of course deep. He warned of a solo climb as they had a "hell- of-a-time" as a party of four. To his opinion there is, notwithstanding of steep places, no danger from avalanches on Shasta, but he refered to glaciers and "hot springs" on the mountain. How tempting - but, this was a case of not allowing the legs to run away with the head.

July 22.

Somewhat downhearted I said Auf Wiedersehn as the train rolled downhill and out of this paradise and Shasta vanished from sight. Yet, I had premonitions for the future.

It was four in the afternoon when the train left Sisson and therefore several hours of daylight permitted me to see parts of the Sacramento Canyon that I missed on my hike along the wagon road. Over a long grade and a great double loop the train reaches the bottom of the canyon, and on the way an interesting feature of the rock formation, exposed by the railroad cut, cannot fail to be observed. This exposure consists of a section of old bed­ rock strata and an overlaying lava flow that at one time extruded from the flanks of Shasta. According to geologists the lower sedimentary strata belongs to the cretaceous period while the overlaying igneous rocks or lavas,

22 including Shasta itself, were produced during the early tertiary. However, the lava flow under observation is of post-glacial origin and followed the ravine of the Sacramento for about fifty miles. Subsequently the energetic Sacramento River cut through the sheet of basalt and deep into the older underlaying bed-rock, and presently the remaining lava forms in part the walls of the canyon.

At Shasta Springs the train stopped for fifteen minutes to give the passengers a chance to take their fill at the "Soda Spring" and to see the Mossbrae Falls. And everybody did pile out and almost religiously guzzled sody- water. This sparkling element is bottled and fancy labeled by a company and shipped as Shasta Water all over the western states. There are more carbonated springs farther down the canyon. Mossbrae Falls is a large spring that drizzles from a horizontal seam in the rock down the moss and fern covered canyon wall; it is very beautiful, resembling a snowy lacework interspersed with sparkling diamonds set against a dark-green background.

Then the Castle Crags appeared in the scenery again. How gorgeous they looked from the depth of the canyon, towering their sun-illuminated spires and rounded domes sky-high above the dark pine forest.

I did not count the tunnels and bridges across the Sacramento, those were many. The last interesting mountain section between Kennet and Redding was passed at sundown. Here from Kennet south to Keswick the hills are sadly devastated of all arboreal as well as smaller plant life by the poisonous fumes from the copper smelters. The barren hill slopes are sun-baked and red, but in vivid contrast the rock formation at the bottom of the canyon is green porphyry, and the Sacramento in its incredibly

23 narrow channel is beautiful emerald. I wondered how deep the river might be as it also carries the considerable volume of water of the Pitt River, which, for a fact, is much larger than the original Sacramento. That channel in the bed­ rock must be ground out very even as the river, though running at fast speed in places, moves along very smooth and only on few points cuts wild capers.

Night fell as the train left the mountains and entering the upper Sacramento Valley at Redding was like diving into an inferno. Though all windows were open and the train moved at great speed cool breezes did not spring up until midnight. Then towards morning came that familiar damp briny chill. The sun rose. - There was Mount Diablo, the glistening San Francisco Bay, Mount Tamalpais, and a stream of fog rolling through the Golden Gate.

24 II

My First Assault on Mount Shasta.

August, 1923. This is a long leap of time from my first pilgrimage to Mount Shasta and the fulfilment of my resolution to conquer it. However, in these six years I succeeded in making one big step toward the mountain by making my home within sight of it. I lived on a water-game reserve, the Greenhead Club, situated in the beautiful and lonely duck marshes of Butte Creek, between the Sacramento River and the Marysville Buttes, those isolated volcanic peaks that rise so picturesque from the Sacramento Plains. From these plains, and more so from any of the peaks of the Buttes, 1 could see on clear days, and especially after winter storms, Mount Shasta, at the distance of about 140 miles to the north. It loomed up at the head of the valley, where the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range meet, like a rose-hued pyramid, with Mount Lassen toward sunrise and Mount Linn toward sunset standing sentinel. Due to the intervening atmosphere the snow-covered peak appears in that color, and due to the great distance only its upper part above the tree line becomes visible.

On different occasions I had taken trips to the Sierra Nevada and also to Mount Lassen, but this time it shall be Shasta again. Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Wheeler invited me to spend a vacation at their family's summer home.'The Bend", on the McCloud River, situated at the very foot of Mount Shasta.

August 7, 1923.

The red sun-ball rises over the purplish range of the Sierra Nevada and 1 am on the road, north-bound, towards Mount Shasta. But this time not as a suffocating train passenger for 1 had myself adjusted to the independence and comforts of an 'auto-tramp'. 1 am the proud possessor of a little Ford roadster, the ideal vehicle for rough riding and camping. The top of the car I had removed entirely to

25 "I am the proud possessor of a little Ford roadster" enjoy fully all the fresh breezes and sunshine; the turtle shell in the back I replaced by a little truck box that would hold all my equipment, blanket roll, provisions and canvas sheets; on the left running board I carried a tool box and two spare tires; to the engine I had attached a radiator pump to prevent her from boiling on steep grades, and a shrill exhaust whistle that could be heard for a mile and sent sheep or cattle scampering from the road.

At such great speeds as 25 to 30 miles per hour I skimmed along the smooth highway through the cool morning air, across seemingly endless grain fields, orchards, and steppe-like plains. My route lay via the towns of Chico, Red Bluff, and Redding, and I covered these 122 miles, including several short stops, in six hours and thirty minutes. After this I resolved never to confine myself to a railroad coach. My road followed up the Sacramento Valley on the east side, but the Sacramento River was never visible until I reached Red Bluff; only an arboreal wall in the distance indicated the course of the river. But I crossed numerous of its small tributaries that come down from the Sierra and Mount Lassen: Chico, Deer, Mill, and Antelope creeks, all hemmed in by attractive jungles of moss-bearded oaks and vine-festooned sycamores. On nearing the foothills of Mount Lassen black lava rocks begin to appear in the creek beds. At Red Bluff the road crosses the Sacramento over an old wooden bridge. Here the river gives evidence of its wild activity in flood times; its bed of sand and gravel bars is at least mile wide, but at this time of year its clear water ripples and meanders peacefully in a moderate channel among green walls of trees. Above Red Bluff the Sacramento describes a great bend and here for ages it forces its waters against its high west bank known as the "Red Bluff", its formation being a red colored alluvial deposit. In early California days the Sacramento was navigable as far as these Red Bluffs, but in

26 later years the silt deposits washed down from placer mines filled the river's channels, and this, together with the coming of the railroad, ended river traffic. Today stern- wheel steamers run only as far as Sacramento and Colusa.

On leaving Red Bluff I drove out on the mesa above the Red Bluff to look over a setting of very pretty and colorful scenery: at the foot of the bluff rushes the river in silvery ripples while a short distance farther down it resembles an emerald lake. The town of Red Bluff with its twin church steeples is attractively situated on a mesa high above the stream. Across the valley to the east rise the volcanic hills dominated by the rugged form of Mount Lassen, and on the west side the softer outlined Yolla Bolly Mountains with Mount Linn.

From here the road leads over a ridge of oak and manzanita covered hills that stretch across the valley from east to west. The river, again not visible from the road, breaks through these hills in a deep winding gorge, the Iron Canyon. On the other side of the hills opens the northern-most section of the Sacramento Valley, situated in the fork formed by the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range or, to be correct, the Cascade Range and the Klamath Mountains. It is a pretty valley, bowl-shaped, grassy green and dotted and lined with dark groves of oaks. The back ground, combined of the Cascades, McCloud, and Klamath Mountains, rises in warm color harmony of purple and red interspersed with white and yellow bands of rock formations and various greens of forest and brush vegetations. And above all rests the dome of a cloud-less sky of the bluest blue.

At 11:30 a.m. 1 drove through Redding and down I coasted the high river bank to the big concrete bridge. What great changes took place since 1 footed it across this

27 bridge six years ago. - Here now is established an "Auto Camp" with cabins, gas station, grocery store, and a dance floor. And right under the head of the bridge is a springboard and a swing for the fun of taking swings, dives, and swims into the river. Now, being across the bridge instead of turning on the old Oregon road to the left, I turned right on the new highway that sweeps 62 miles over the hills to Dunsmuir. At this point I almost regretted for not being on foot again with my rucksack on my back, but I also must admit to have felt keen enjoyment when I flew up and down over and in curves and loops around these hills. The road was not paved then, but well gravelled.

These hills are flat topped, red soiled, dry and hot; in one place, where a small stream had cut into the ground, black volcanic rock lay exposed. The vegetation consisted chiefly of manzanita, oak, and digger pine. After crossing a pass the road suddenly dropped down into the canyon of the Pitt River. Aniving on the river, there was a fine bridge spanning the river in a single great arch. This again was a good place for a little stop to look at the romantic scenery, the wild waters beneath and the rugged mountains above. Only a short distance above the bridge the McCloud river joins with the Pitt and there from the fork of the two streams rears Horse Mountain above all others, a conspicuous landmark of white rock. Shortly after crossing the Pitt River the road turned off into the McCloud canyon and followed that stream for several miles, as far as Baird where the McCloud salmon hatchery is located. Here I saw the McCloud River for the first time and I wondered about its crystal clear steel-blue water. All I knew so far is that it is born by Mount Shasta, but soon I shall become well acquainted with it.

Again the road climbs over a divide, now more thickly wooded country, towards the Sacramento Canyon. Never

28 before saw I such endless succession of grades, sharp turns and loops and handling a steering wheel over this stretch means to be wide awake. At 3 p.m. I reached the Sacramento River and drove over a fine bridge span. On the other side now the old narrow bumpy Oregon [road] was no more, it gave way to the broad sweep of the highway. Six years ago I would not have dreamt that I would [drive] along this canyon and steal glances at the mountain scenery and the river hundreds of feet below. At about 5 p.m. I caught the first glimpse of Mount Shasta. But this time I did not sit down spellbound; though I stopped and greeted the mountain as an old friend. This time its uppermost part was covered under a white cap of clouds. A little farther on I stopped to make camp on Sweet Brair Creek. Lizzie did a good day's work of 178 miles, with much climbing in hot weather and without the slightest misbehavior. Making camp early is a wise thing to do, for it is pleasanter to do the cooking and eating still in daylight and smoke a pipe after, at the campfire in the dark.

August 8.

In the morning I drove past those beautiful Castle Crags. Their sharp granite spires, clefted walls, and the Dome reared in golden sunlight high above the dark velvety forest into the clear blue sky. I felt tempted to stop over for an exploration, but the call of Shasta urged on. At 10 a.m. I drove through Dunsmuir and here I was glad to notice that the road was paved again. But hardly two miles out of town my high spirit became precipitated at a sudden spell of motor trouble. Lizzie showed faintness and would not pull on high. I looked under the hood and employed all my wisdom without avail. Even a blast of profanity did not

29 stir the stubborness of my iron mule. Realizing the many miles of hills that lay ahead I decided to turn back to Dunsmuir. And here my astonishment was great for two reasons; first: for running into an honest mechanic, and second: there was nothing wrong with the motor. According to the greasy authority's statement the grade between Dunsmuir and Sisson is steeper than it appears to be, a fact not realized by many motorists. The grade being not quite ten miles long rises 1,271 feet and this is just a little beyond the power of a 1916 Ford. I was advised to try it patiently on low. - And thus we made the grade, and I took it all back what I said to Lizzie, - and spirits and speed were high again at the sight of Mount Shasta as we emerged from the wooded Sacramento Canyon into the open of Sisson Valley at the foot of the mountain.

Now I stopped, for gazing at Shasta and driving at the same time will not do. I noticed that the mountain's slopes were less snow-covered than in July 1917, which I think, would mean an advantage for a climb. I spent some time with the glass in calculating a possible route to the summit. Later, in Sisson, I found out that last year the Sierra Club built a shelter house at Shasta's timberline. It is situated at the old Horse Camp where climbing parties formerly made camp under the sky. The hut is named "Shasta Alpine Lodge"; its distance from Sisson is eight miles, i.e. three miles of road and five miles of trail, to the elevation of 8,000 feet. - Three cheers to the Sierra Club. On coming directly from the hot and dense atmosphere of low-land, almost at sea level, I realized I should give myself a chance to acclimatize for altitude and hard work in rarefied atmosphere. Therefore I decided to stay around the foot of Shasta for a few weeks, hiking and botanizing, and stop with Wheelers at The Bend on the McCloud River first. The elevation at Sisson is 3,555 feet and on the McCloud around 3,000. Before entering Sisson from the 30 south the McCloud road turns off to the right. It's a twelve mile dirt road, a long hot grade up brushy slopes covered with manzanita, choke cherry, and snowbrush, climbing over a 5,000 foot pass referred to as McCloud Summit. This pass is situated on a ridge that extents from the lower slopes of Mount Shasta southward, forming a divide between the Sacramento Canyon on the west and Squaw Creek Valley on the east. Driving up that road one enjoys fine vistas over Mount Eddy, the Castle Crags, and the Sacramento Canyon and of course a good close view of the south side of Mount Shasta. For a fact this road and the pass are to be regarded as Shasta territory. I was told that about twenty-five years ago the forest extended in one unbroken stretch from Sisson over the summit to McCloud. In that short time woodsmen and fire caused that much destruction. But on the summit itself a strip of forest still reaches down and across from Shasta's higher timber belt. There is Douglas Fir, Yellow Pine, Incense Cedar, Sugar Pine, and Knob-cone Pine. I never will forget that first view from the Summit. There to the left rose the enormous bulk of Shasta and streight ahead towards the east lay the McCloud River country, forest and nothing but forest as the eye can see. The bluish ridge in the background is Grizzly Peak, 6,253 feet, the highest elevation of the McCloud Mountains.

It did not take long to coast down to the valley and the town of McCloud. The last mile of road offered an unobstructed view over the town, its great lumber mill and extensive lumber yard. Here a monster saw eats the forest, turning it into millions of feet of lumber, supporting about 3,000 people. McCloud is a typical one-man-town. Everything is lumber company except post office, forest service, and school. The place is connected with the outside world by a railroad that also crosses over the Summit to Sisson.

31 From McCloud there were seven more miles to The Bend. First I drove one mile down the Squaw Creek valley, then turned on a private road due east. There was a stretch of beautiful deep fir forest; one Douglas Fir standing close by the road measures about nine feet in diameter; the land in general is a cindery flat, with stands of Yellow pine and much brush, and in places there are outcroppings of rough black lava. Then suddenly I heard the McCloud River from its deep canyon to the left and I was stopped by a gate. I proceeded on foot down the canyon and, where the road forked I took the wrong turn that brought me face to face with a magnificent stone-pile of European architecture, with a big tower, high-gabled roofs, a gothic stained glass window: - Wintoon Castle of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst. From here I was directed to The Bend about one-half mile farther down the river. At the Bend I was greeted by Mrs. Helen Wheeler and her little son Charles III.

The Bend resembles a scene in a fairy tale, a medieval woodland home, built of native stone and timber. It is most unique and beautiful, the creation of Mr. Wheeler's father, a man of ideals and culture. The place is situated on a little peninsular flat surrounded from three sides by the McCloud River that forms here in its narrow canyon a perfect horse-shoe loop, The Bend. The buildings are set at the opening at the foot of the hill and from that point one can see the river to the right and to the left, almost confusing one to the conception of two confluent rivers. The ground plan of the building, or rather linked group of buildings, also is that of a loop, enclosing a spacious court, and the entire group consists of three square houses, three hexagonal towers, and one large hall, the latter being connected with the other parts by roofed colonnades, and all being surrounded by colonnades and covered verandas. The thick walls are built of very dark columnar basalt, quarried from a nearby lava-flow; the wood-work is hewn

32 from douglas firs that once stood on these grounds, the adze marks being visible on the stringers and rafters that carry the roofs; and all the interior work is yellow pine, carved paneling in the great hall and dining room and plain clear ceiling in all other rooms; the high roofs are pine shingle, silvery gray from age, surmounted by massive stone chimneys; the windows are made from leaded glass. At night the place is illuminated by electricity produced by a little stream in a nearby canyon fed by Shasta's melting snow. - There are ten fireplaces and the one in the great reception hall, set back in an alcove, is a wondrous affair with sumptuous end-irons. That hall contains a library of about 800 volumes, a fine collection of several hundred Indian baskets, Navajo blankets, bear and lion skins, two gorgeous silver mounted Mexican saddles, and Tyrolean chairs carved by Anton Lang, etc.

The court is taken up by lawns and a driveway loop around a large circular fish pond with a high spouting fountain, overshadowed by quavering aspen trees and surrounded by large saxifrage plants and ferns. A living brook winds through the court, supplying the fish pond with icy spring water. One of the towers, designated the Fish Tower, bears in stone relief the crescent of The Bend and above the entrance the inscription "piscatoribus sacrum". Its two windows are converted to aquariums, displaying McCloud rainbow trout swimming in the sun­ light in crystaline water among water plants and pretty rocks. According to ichthyologists the McCloud rainbow trout - Salmo Shastensis - is a distinct subspecies of the rainbow that occurs in no other streams except in the McCloud River and McKenzie River in Oregon.

On the lower end of the flat stands a large barn, an attractive log structure in itself, surrounded by a corral. And there are ten saddle horses, over thirty saddles, and an

33 old-time relique, a four-horse stagecoach with leather springs. In this coach the old pioneer inn-keeper Sisson used to haul his guests from Sisson over the Summit down here to The Bend for fishing. The Bend was Sisson's property after his death bought by Mr. Wheeler Sr. and as time went on extended to the size of 3,600 acres, being spread on both sides of the McCloud River for about five miles.

The following day I was in the saddle, riding with Mrs.. Wheeler through the woods, and over hill and dale. — Helen is a sincere nature enthusiast, a good outdoor woman and a hard rider. - She took me to all the beauty spots and sacred re-cesses, curios and grand views on, as well as outside of, the estate. We rode to the Amos' Meadow, a lovely flowery pasture amidst the pine forest. On the trail too stood a nine-foot Douglas fir, measuring twenty-seven feet in circumference, and near the meadow a yellow pine with a twisted trunk resembling a doric column. And from there we rode over a saddle on a ridge down to another many times larger field, the Huckleberry Meadow. From that saddle opened the grandest view of Mount Shasta as it towers beyond the meadow and the forest belt to its impressive height. From this point Shasta offers its southeast face, forming in outline a perfect symmetrical cone because its secondary crater-cone Shastina lies obscure on the northwest side. From here the very summit pinnacle of the mountain is discernible. There stretches a glacier farther down and beneath that a deeply cut canyon rends the mountain's side: Mud Creek Glacier and Mud Creek Canyon.

We also rode up and down the McCloud River and when Mr. Wheeler came from San Francisco for the weekend we all rode to the Big Springs. The trail starts near the confluence of Angel Creek with the McCloud

34 and in about a three mile stretch it cuts across the big elbow of the river. We rode through deep Douglas fir and yellow pine forest with a few grass and buck brush openings inbetween. On the farther end we got into an old burn from a terrible forest fire of about ten years ago. Here the trail became lost under fallen logs and Mrs. Wheeler, who was leading way ahead, could go no farther and we had to wait for Mr. Wheeler who knows the country well enough without trails. Soon we heard the river rustle from some­ where far down and we came to the brink of the deep canyon. The trail zig-zagged down to the bottom of the canyon and there we tied our horses to trees. On foot we followed a faint path over rocks and log for a short way downstream and there, across the stream, was the most fascinating phenomenon: the Big Spring of the McCloud River.

Can one imagine a spring about sixty feet wide gushing and plunging from a moss and fern covered canyon side down to a river. - Here it is, Mount Shasta waters from its melting snow and glacier ice that seep through the many layers of lava until it hits the more compact underlaying strata of sedimentary rock and here where the two stratas are disected and exposed by the river Shasta's subtenanean reservoirs are tapped by bounteous springs. For a fact, more than one third of the volume of the McCloud River is supplied by the Big Spring.

August 14, 15, 16.

On the previous day Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler left The Bend for San Francisco and I started out for the Huckleberry Meadow to camp and paint there for a few days in solitude. By a circuitous wagon track I found my way and made camp under a big patriarchic yellow pine.

35 Here I spread my sleeping bag on a mattress of fragrant pine needles and built a fire place of rocks. A creek comes winding down the meadow, causing it to be boggy in places, and on following this creek in search of plants I found its source within about one-half mile distance. There opened a very deep hole in the ground, not more than ten feet in diameter, filled with an inky-black pool of clear water boiling up from the depth of the hole. - Another spring of Shasta's drainage system. Around here the flowering season was well over; but I was very happy to find, along the margin of the meadow and the woods, fringed gentian in bloom, and lower down in some damp and cool side canyons of the river I still found tiger lilies and bleeding hearts. Of Mount Shasta I painted a sketch in aquarell. A little chipmonk chose to become a member of my household and we both had a profitable amusing time. - Plunges in the creek and sunbaths made those three days on the meadow paradisical.

August 17.

On that morning there was early stirring under the big yellow pine. With breakfast over the fire was put out, the Ford packed up and cranked, and I was off for the Mountain. 1 drove back over the Summit again to Sisson and there I made arrangements to store the Ford in a garage while I was on the mountain. A mechanic drove me to the start of the trail, about one mile on the highway north from Sisson where the McCloud railroad branches from the main line. From this point I started to walk at 10:15 a.m.

Here for miles the gently rising ground is covered with thickets of manzanita, snow-bush and bitter-cherry. This is the great chaparral field that from the distance appears so

36 deceptively like a green velvety sod; it girdles the mountain almost clear around up to the lower margin of the forest belt. Deep canyons that cleave the mountain's sides higher up dwindle away in the chaparral and rough lava flows are hidden under the dense carpet of brush. Taking a shortcut through these fields or getting lost would be a bitter experience, and without a cut trail Mount Shasta would be inapproachable. And that trail is hot and cindery. After two miles I reached the entrance of a rocky gulch and the first forest trees. One really could drive in a car this far, and here, according to a sign, the Shasta Trail properly starts. All around sawed-off tree stumps and charred logs tell the story of activities of the past.

The day was warm and the going was hot. I carried a fairly heavy pack with a four days food supply of bread, cheese, canned beans, sugar and tea, besides of cooking utensils, some extra woolens, camera, canteen, field glasses, compass, map, belt axe, and sleeping bag. I made a mistake not to have filled my canteen with water before the start; of course I did not expect a snow mountain like Shasta to be without springs at every step, but soon I realized that fact and the prospect of an eight mile walk without a drink. Plodding along with a dry tongue as a rule produces mirages of sparkling springs and mugs of beer and when unexpectedly I saw a slip of a board bearing the legend "300 yards to water" I hardly would trust my eyes. I lost no time in letting my pack down, unstrapping the canteen and making in the given direction. Those 300 yards must have been stepped by a long-legged fellow, through scratchy brush and over rock, but there was rustling rippling clear cold water, king of all beverages. Things looked bright again. The going became steeper and soon I reached the Zig-zag where the trail climbs out of the ravine and onto a ridge. As I found out later this ravine is known as Cascade Gulch and the spring below as McBride Spring. Being now

37 higher up on the ridge again a change in the vegetation is noticeable. Chinquapin replaces the lower chapanal; oak has disappeared entirely and douglas fir and yellow pine give way to sugar pine and Shasta fir. And still higher up Shasta fir is the only tree that forms the magnificent Shasta forest belt that en-circles the entire mountain. The Shasta Fir, or Red Fir, or Silver Fir, is the abies magnifica var. shastensis. It is a beautiful tree, fortunately of no commercial value, and I hope never will be. Nothing is more enjoyable and soothing to the eye than looking up into the green lace-work of its branches delicately traced against the blue sky; and as the needles glisten in the sunlight there hovers a silvery luster over the branches that might originated the conception of silver fir. Also the trunks and branches of the young trees have that silvery- gray dew, but the trunks of matured trees are reddish- brown. The bark is narrow furrowed and covered on the weather-side with golden-green lichen, and when chopped into with an axe shows a bright crimson red. The young trees, straight and slender like candles, have the most symmetrically developed branch-whirls among all other firs. A grove of young Shasta firs is a lovely thing to behold. Where the Shasta fir dominates it forms a fine clean forest without underbrush; one may walk among the countless columns over a clean springy forest floor of fallen twigs, needles, and cones. The warm atmosphere is fragrant with balsam of these firs in distinct contrast to the smell of the lower chaparral fields.

In spite of nature's loveliness the trail is not a pleasant one because the ground is cindery and much loosened up by the feet of many riding and pack animals. The dust was foot-deep, and it was very hot. At moderate cost the road could and should be improved and extented to the Zig-zag. It would be of great convenience to drive that far. Otherwise the trail is well laid out, but insufficiently

38 marked for winter travel. I am sure those few blazes on the trees will be covered by snow. At one point higher up the trail skirts the rim of Cascade Gulch again, where it drops away as a deep rocky canyon. This is a welcome stopping place for a little rest, a breath of cool air that sweeps down from above, and a nice view down the canyon towards Black Butte. There the almost black symmetric cone rises directly from the velvety green chaparral field like a volcanic mountain island from a green rolling sea. From this point of vantage, the fact that Black Butte is the result of four or five eruptions, becomes quite apparent.

At 1:15 p.m. I reached the place where a signboard informed the distance from Sisson is five miles and to Horse Camp six miles. Here I also met two hikers coming down in great strides and high spirit. They assured me the goal to be worth the hardship. - From here on the trail noticeably becomes firmer, changing from cinder to rock. - Also the forest trees change in appearance. There is no other tree to be seen now but Shasta firs and they take on an alpine character by developing stronger and heavier, standing firmly on broad root-swellings, thus being supported and reenforced against wind-storms and heavy loads of snow. Their fine trunks and strong branches are thickly covered with golden-green and dark-brown lichens - Evernia Vulpina and Alectoria fremonti. In the upper timber belt meadow-like clearings are becoming quite frequent; but these resemble more sand flats, being sparsely covered with wiry grass, flowering alpine plants, and rounded pebbles of pumice.

About one mile below Horse Camp I met two ladies coming down on horseback. They were all smiles and assured [me] I soon will be "there". - This was at the upper timber line already. The solid forest becomes broken up now; there are more clearings than timbered ground and

39 rocky ridges, loose moraine material, ravines, and meadow flats make up the fore ground of the scene, while in the back ground rises the bare rocky enormous massif of Shasta proper and its monticule Shastina, both close at hand. What a mass of rock ornate with bands, patches and crests of snow. The moment one escapes the stiffling hot forest zone a crisp spicy breeze, fragrant with alpine herbs fills ones lungs and regenerates new energy. For the last mile the trail remains in the open, rising along the slope of a ridge above a broad shallow ravine that for several miles comes sweeping down the south face of the mountain. This is Horse Camp Canyon, a glacial trough or channel of a former mighty glacier that headed high up on the mountain. The entire canyon is a terraced succession of moraines; the hill at the foot of the canyon is the terminal moraine, now covered with old Shasta fir forest and crossed by the trail I just covered. At times terrific wind storms must be sweeping from the mountain down this ravine, for, there is a stretch of forest laying prostrate on its bottom. The trees, already bleached like skeletons are partly uprooted and partly broken off about six feet above the ground which indicates a layer of snow of that depth at the time when it happened. And, difficult to explain, at one point the destructive force divided like a fork, leaving untouched a strip of timber standing on the lower end of the devastated area. This last mile indeed is pleasant walking with interesting things to look at and a delightful array of alpine flowers along the trail, chiefly lupine, monardella, gold brush, scarlet gilia, and penstemon. Patches of silvery lupine omitted sweet honey-like fragrance. Dwarf mountain manzanita, not higher than one foot, and low bush chinquapin form the under brush among the straggling firs.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, after five hours and forty five minutes of slow crawling and sweating over these

40 paltry eight miles. I reached the Alpine Lodge at Horse Camp.

Mount Shasta Alpine Lodge.

Horse Camp of old is the campground of the earliest as well as of Shasta climbers of recent times. It is situated on a gently sloping flat at timber line, at the elevation of 8,000 feet above sealevel, or 4,445 feet above Sisson or Strawberry Valley. The camp is somewhat sheltered by a tongue of Shasta fir forest at the base of the great precipitous ridge that flanks Horse Camp Canyon on the west. The dead-fall from these trees furnishes an abundance of fire wood and a few hundred feet towards the mountain a fine little spring trickles down the rock. Here, during the summer of 1922, the Sierra Club built the Alpine Lodge on land leased from the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The building is erected from native Shasta stone, andesite, and is covered by a strong weather- resisting roof constructed of heavy iron-bound logs and corrugated metal, and has a large fire place, six windows of heavy plate glass set in iron frames, and a smooth concrete floor.

The cost of the building amounted to $7,000 of which $5,000 were donated by M. Hall McAllister of the Sierra Club, $800 by other Sierra Club members, and the balance by the following communities: Sisson $ 500; Redding $250; Weed $250; Dunsmuir $200. Good work! - The Lodge is dedicated to the public; visitors and Shasta climbers may enjoy its shelter and fireplace free of charge. During the summer months the place is in charge of a custodian. The interior of the Lodge is equipped with fourteen wooden benches, one table, one bookshelf, six single mattresses, six woolen army blankets, and a register

41 book. Water is piped down from the before mentioned spring, emptying into three cut-down barrels set up on the south side of the building.

To have the Alpine Lodge serve its purpose fully as a mountain climbers shelter it should be equipped with a little cook stove, another table, and a few shelfs, like most of the renown[ed] huts in the Alps. Under present conditions in the Lodge, the open fire place would be the logical hearth for preparing simple meals, instead of out­ doors among the rocks, exposed to the wind, [but] for the reason that visitors would turn the Lodge into a hog-pen. - A harsh but true statement.

The custodian, Mr. Mack Olberman, has his own cabin a short distance from the Lodge towards the trees. There he is willing to cook for non-provisioned visitors or sell from his supply at incredibly low prices, notwithstanding the fact that he has to pay $10.00 for a hundred pound weight for packing.

Here in the lodge register I read now for the first time some interesting legends about Mount Shasta.

1826, Mount Shasta discovered by Peter Skene Ogden. 1846, Fremont Expedition observed and passed the mountain. 1852, Captain Prince first recorded ascent. 1858, Joaquin Miller and party; first women made the ascent. 1862, Prof. J. D. Whitney and party made the ascent. 1870, Clarence King and party explored and slept three nights on mountain. 1872, John Muir explored and camped on mountain.

42 1875, Captain A. F. Rogers, U. S. Coast Survey, erected steel cylinder monument on mountain. 1883, Harry Babcock made record ascent in 3 hrs. 40 mins. 1905, About 50 members of the Sierra Club made the ascent. 1923, July 4, Norman Clyde, Sierra Club member, made record climb of 2 hrs. 43 mins. 1923, July 18, Geraldine Mazza, 8-year old girl, made the summit of Shasta.

From the moment I arrived at the Lodge I was occupied for a while listening to Mr. Olberman's flow of talk, telling me what I can do and what not, and probing about my own being. When I opened my mouth his question was "spreken sie deitsch" (sprechen sie Deutsch - do you speak German). So we exchanged some 'deitsch'. - His German was self- taught from a book, not adopted from his German father. His Irish mother he honored in [his] preference to be called Mack. Mack is a queer old fellow, but soon I discovered him to be an interesting character of considerable knowledge and remarkable memory. But in appearance he is a scarecrow incarnate. Imagine a tall lanky skinny fellow clad in loose overalls and shoes full of holes and wearing a silly little strawhat much too small for his round head, bristling with a mop of obstinate grizzly hair; and this airy toggery up there in the breezy altitude between timber line and perpetual snow. But Mack seems well acclimatized; he is healthy in thought, talk and action, and chewing and spitting tobacco he is a dynamo.

43 Mack

.."An interesting character of considerable knowledge and remarkable memory" Mack has climbed to the top of Shasta several times, but his description of the route was not precise enough to be followed. Apparently he is not a mountain climber and his eyesight is very bad. However, a few points were of value as the route may be calculated for a few miles upward from the Lodge to the skyline crest of the "Red Banks". Whatever lies beyond, and the summit itself, is not visible from the Lodge. The distance is (erroneously) estimated at 3.5 miles. One has to climb 6,162 feet and back in one day. For the ascent six hours is allowed good climbing time, and two hours for the return. The land marks are as following: from the Lodge to a bunch of dwarf pines on a knoll; from there keep along the "Hog's-back" (big moraine) to the foot of the "Island"; the Island is a isolated patch of talus below the Red Banks, prominently surrounded by two tongues of snow; from the Island keep to the right up to the "Red Banks", a conspicuous cloven wall of reddish rock; climb over the Banks through one of the clevages to the crest; a diverging route farther to the right by the way of "Thumb Rock"is not safe on account of glacier ice; from the Red Banks along the crest up "Misery Hill"; from there the Summit Pinnacle is in sight; there are a number of "Hot Springs" at the foot of the summit.

It was Saturday and according to Mack a weekend crowd could be expected. On my arrival another visitor was here already, a quiet mountain hiker accompanied by a little white terrier. Thus the first to come will be entitled to a mattress. I lost no time in pushing two benches together in one comer, putting a mattress on and my whole own outfit on top to hold my claim down. - The other hiker with the dog occupied the other mattress and corner. After this I went for delightful splashing and footbathing in the ice cold water; according to Mack's order only the lower of the three tubs may be used for such purpose, and he confided to me that he takes his weekly by

44 climbing entirely into it. -1 would like to be with the camera around the corner of the house. - The water was 42° Fh. and I felt like a new man; then the second part of the treatment was to sit in the mild sunshine against the warm stone wall of the building and revel in the fine panorama that unrolls below in a wide sweep from southeast to northwest.

Far to the south appears the long bluish ridge of the Yolla Bolly Mountains culminating in Mount Linn. Adjoining to the north follow the Trinity and Salmon Alps, the Scott and Marble Mountains, and the Siskiyou Mountains on the California-Oregon border. The Trinities are the most rugged, rockiest, and highest mountains in that whole chain. Those distant serrated peaks, silhouetted against the pale western sky, appear to be bare rock, showing snow fields on the north slopes. Thompson Peak, 8,936 feet high, a sharp pyramid of light-colored granite, becons invitingly. These mountains are partly unexplored. - The Siskiyous are dominated by two peaks of moderate hight: Ashland Peak, 7,530 feet and Preston Peak, 7,310 feet. In the foreground opens the winding chasm of the Sacramento Canyon flanked by the jagged mass of pinkish granite, the Castle Crags; Mount Eddy, 9,151 feet, still more than one-thousand feet above the level of Horse Camp appears, by some optical delusion, to be below that level. And Black Butte in Strawberry Valley has dwindled to insignificance. The view over Sisson is obstructed by the wooded knoll of the great terminal moraine of Horse Camp Canyon.

By now it was time to cook supper and as the wind had calmed down this was accomplished without difficulties over an improvised hearth of flat lava clinkers with plenty of dry wood. And it was a long time since I had relished beans, Swiss cheese, ryebread, and tea with such gusto as

45 sitting here on a rock, eating, and watching a glorious sunset over the world below and an Alpen-glow over Shasta above. Thumb Rock, the Red Banks, the serrated ridges and the snows were flooded in liquid crimson. As soon as the sun went down beyond the Salmon Alps a nightly chill settled over camp. But the thick stone walls of the Lodge still retained warmth and Mack started a cheerful crackling fire.

I wriggled into the sleeping-bag early that I might get a good rest for the morrow's climb up Shasta. But just then the Saturday crowd began to troop in, in twos and threes, with much noise of course. It was eleven when the last party arrived with a completely exhausted woman in tow, and two more dogs. - So we were sixteen people and three dogs, with all their knapsacks and blanket rolls packed into the one-room lodge. - Of course everybody was hungry and had to cook over the fire-place, and clatter their tin-dishes, and talk and laugh merrily while eating. Fireplaces should not smoke, but this one does badly when the logs are not arranged right; and so do men when they get away from their nagging spouses. The girl in this party was either unattached or too exhausted to make complaints; but after a while the smoke of Shasta fir and various brands of tobacco and the heat became unbearable, even for the men and dogs, and the two windows that were arranged to swing were opened. - One party in particular was serious about making the top of Shasta and therefore did everything here and now to improve and complete the equipment by the light of the fire and a candle, including the hob-nailing of boots.

Well toward midnight they turned in. The poor woman who anived last and brought no blanket would have been out of luck if two chivalrous fellows had not sacrificed, one his mattress, the other a blanket. Every bench was

46 occupied and the remainder had to snuggle up on the concrete floor. - With the smoke of the dying fire, groans and sighs rose to the blinking stars. But the dogs could not find comfort at all and one started to pass the long weary hours by walking about and licking the sleepers faces. - Then an angry voice rose: "whosoever dog this might be, tie him up to your own bench; this is a rest-house for men, not for dogs". - A refrain of sniggling followed this speech; then a cord was found and Pooch was hitched to his master. - Now everything was quiet for a while until someone started to wheeze and snore; more oppressed merriment and a muffled thud was audible and felt by the wood-sawyer from his neighbors kicking leg.

August 18. Four hours were probably all the sleep I had. At day­ break I was up, ate a light breakfast of sugared tea, bread, and a little cheese, and left the Lodge at 5:45 a.m. I was the first out and alone on the trail, starting to climb slow and steady, making every step count by stepping on firm stones to avoid backsliding and scrambling in the loose gravel. First, on starting from the Lodge, I intended to cross the flat in a streight line to that last bunch of trees on top of the first knoll, but soon I found myself confronted by a ravine which I had to cross and from there on zig-zag a course up the slope of the rocky knoll. Those weather- beaten trees turned out to [be] a group of Pinus albicaulis - White-bark Pine -, a species similar to the Legfohre - Pinus montana - of the Alps.

From here I advanced from knoll to knoll upward on the big moraine or Mack's Hog-back. Nearby to the right the ground fell off to the deep ravine of Horse Camp Canyon; from its bottom I heard the rustling of water from the melting snow fields above. Only one-half mile farther

47 up a discending tongue of snow bridges and covers the canyon for the rest of its length. And farther over to the left I looked into another ravine where a carpet of lush vegetation indicates the presence of springs. On both sides rise the high ridges of Horse Camp Canyon or, the East and South Aretes sweeping down from the Red Banks. Walking on this ground was the most tiresome I ever experienced; Where the slope was steep, one miscalculated step meant sliding two steps back. This moraine is composed of fragments the different volcanic rocks that occur on Shasta. These are chiefly andesites, pumice, lapilli, and lava-slag, varying greatly and attractively in colors of gray, black, brown, pink, yellow, green, and purple, and occuring in all sizes from grains of sand and pebbles to large angular slabs and blocks weighing tons. In places small flats or depressions are solidly covered with olive-green colored pumice. Some of the andesites are broken up in platy slabs, sounding a metallic ring when stepped on with hob-nailed shoes. The entire moraine is a succession of billowy knolls piled one above the other, each tenace indicating a recession of the former glacier. That south slope up which I climbed lay in cold shade and nightly chill while golden sun beams shot over the dark ridges illuminating the world below. The golden-rosy morning glow flickered and flowed over the Castle Crags, the Trinity Alps, the forests, and all the other mountain ranges west of Shasta. And, what a phenomenon: over that sea of warm light lay cast the shadow of Shasta in the shape of a gigantic purple-blue cone, extending for many miles but visibly diminishing as the sun rose higher. Then around 6:30 a.m. sunbeams began to shoot with a dazzling glare over the serrated Thumb Rock Ridge, casting long narrow shadows of the rock towers and needles and transforming the sky piercing rocks of the opposite arete onto a crimson-golden conflagration. It was over­ whelmingly beautiful. - And with all that magic light

48 vanished the arctic chill of rock and ice; the rock-bound canyon lost some of its sterness, it became warm and even pleasant. Along my route from the 8,000 foot level at Horse Camp up to approximately 10,000 feet near the head of the big moraine, I found an interesting variety of alpine plants, some growing in colonies or broadly scattered, some growing in sheltered nooks of rocks or unprotected in the open in the sand. Some of these plants are very showy and beautiful, but most of them are modest and inconspicuous in appearance. But in no case do these plants grow plentiful enough to form solid mats on the ground; nature can afford Shasta only the luxury of thin rock gardens. The plants I found and collected on this first climb were the following: arnica viscosa, Castilleja affinis, Phlox douglasii, Spraguea umbellata, Viola pupurea, Polygonum newberryi, Polygonum davisae, Penstemon menziesi, Phyllodoce empetriformis, Hulsea larseni, Erigeron compositus trifidus, Arabis platisperma, Oxyria digyna, Holodiscus discolor, Castanopsis sempervirens, and various species of Sedge. After a long drag I reached the head of the big moraine where it tapers to a narrow divide between the starting points of the two ravines. There is a terrace-flat above with a bowl-like depression to the left formed by a crescent- shaped small moraine and filled with an enourmous mass of packed and frozen snow. Here the main canyon narrows considerably as the ridges are closing in from both sides, and at this altitude of around 11,000 feet the ridges acquire the true character of glacial aretes; they rise from steep talus slopes in rough cragged walls culminating in fantastic rock towers and 'gendarmes'. One rock particularly resembles a crenelated tower wherefore I named it "Battlement Rock". From this terrace upward to the foot of the Red Banks the aretes now really comprise the cirque of the former glacier that carved and filled the canyon and

49 deposited all those moraines below. At the present there is no more glacial ice in evidence, but the possibility of existing ice deposits underneath the debris is a matter of conjecture. However, the bottom of the canyon or glacial cirque is filled with perpetual snow over which I now proceeded.

As the snow was hard frozen and the slope increased in steepness I strapped my four-pronged crampons to the shoes, which afforded a better footing. The snow by no means was blanket-like smooth; on the contrary, it was deeply furrowed and melted out in cup-like depressions and sharp ridges. Rock fragments of all sizes were strewn all over the field, leaving their tracks on the snow as they came rolling and bounding down from their places of dislogement. Along the lowest line of the cirque a gully was plowed out, evidently by wild running water from rapidly melting snow earlier in the season, with miniature marginal moraines of rocks piled along its banks. Even now, from under the frozen snow and crusts of clear ice I could hear the musical murmur and tinkling of running water.

From elevations above 11,000 feet new vistas opened over the crests of the west and east ridges. The Alpine Lodge with its shining tin roof, 3,000 feet below, appeared in the picture now; by an innocent observer it could be taken for an ice-polished big boulder. The western mountain scenery that I observed yesterday from Horse Camp widened to the horizon at least sixty miles. All the white granite Saw-tooth ridges of the Trinities were now visible. - To the southeast, at a distance of sixty-five miles, Mount Lassen stood in plain sight, showing but small patches and narrow bands of snow. And far to the south, about 150 miles distant, I believe to have recognized in faint blue outlines, above the haze of the Sacramento

50 plains, the Marysville Buttes. Here I also experienced another interesting optical delusion: notwithstanding the fact that I gazed from elevations of 10,000 to 13,000 feet, which is higher than any of those mountains in sight, they and the entire far horizon appeared to rise up above my level instead of sloping away and down.

Looking over the East Arete I saw another smaller ridge, branching off towards southeast, rising to and abruptly terminating in a remarkably colored knob and vertical cliff. That beautiful formation is either the eroded remnant of a lava coulee or the core of a small volcanic cone. On account of its abrupt brake, its banded layers of lava are distinctly defined, resembling the color scheme of a striped Turkish scarf, playing from almost black to dark red-brown, to rich ochre and yellow, carmine, purple, and grayish-green. -1 hope to have done justice by naming this object of volcanic art "Painted Cliff'. - The valley between this ridge and the mountain's slope lowers away to the scree and cinder flats at the foot of Red Butte, another of Shasta's parasitic minor cones.

Around 11,000 feet the rarefied atmosphere of high altitude began to take effect on my system. No matter how deep I breathed I could not get enough oxygen to satify the lungs; I could feel the heart beat up in the throat; the legs were loaded with lead and almost painfully tired in the thigh. I had to stop about every thirty paces to recuperate quickly and relapse to weakness again the moment I moved. Such is the consequence for living in the low­ lands. Reaching the foot of the Island I turned to the right. Here the incline was about 30 degrees and increased in steepness, and the surface of the snow became rougher. The Island protruded from the snow as a black mass of disintegrated lava and cinders; when the melting of the heavy winter snow sets in it always is one of the first

51 objects to show up as an Island and as it increases in size it takes, according to some imaginative observers, the shape of an arrow-head or of a midden. The Red Banks rise immediately above and now become the object of greatest interest and some anxiety, as ones attainment of Shasta's summit depends on ones failure or success of surmounting them.

The Red Banks are a lapilli formation, probably ejected during the last eruption of Shasta's main summit crater. Obviously it is the result of two successive flows of very viscous magma that covered the entire south shoulder of the mountain with two thick layers, at this point reaching from the west-ridge to the east-ridge thus constituting the upper wall of the glacial cirque. In its present state a goodly portion of the original mass has been eroded away by the action of ice, water and wind, and the remainder is disected by narrow cleavages, 50 to 80 feet deep, causing the sections to loom up in grotesquely shaped buttresses, knobs, and overhanging cornices of rounded outlines. The material is of crumbly porous structure, ochre-red in color, and interspersed with small angular fragments of a glossly- black very compact lava, resembling the raisins in a pudding. 'Pudding Stone' would be a quite appropriate name.

On reaching the foot of the Red Banks I had the choice of finding a way upwards through one of the cleavages or chimneys, at first sight apparently an easy matter. - But soon I had to find out that all these passages were filled with ice forming insurmountable ice falls at the approaches or entrances. The unbroken slopes to the east, towards Thumb Rock, I thought too steep. I noticed the Banks to diminish in height toward the west and in that direction I traversed the very steep ice-crusted slope above the Island. I estimated that slope at 35 to 40 degrees; heavy

52 frozen snow drifts were massed against the wall; 1 had to move very cautious by finding footholds along the rock but in places I could not avoid the ice. I would not have dared to do so without crampons, though I wished they were of the standard eight-prong type. My little belt axe also proved very useful for chopping secure footholds. A slip and fall would have meant a thousand foot slide and tumble.

With every new cleft in the Banks I passed I also discovered new inaccessible baniers of ice, and I kept on going until I reached the last and highest situated section of the Banks that protruded as an isolated rock, only about ten feet in height, from the snow. This rock was sufficiently tilted back to be climbed without risk, but when I was on top of it, in a crouching position, I was confronted by a wall of snow, not less than 45 degree steep. Facing this obstacle I stopped to turn the situation over in my mind, for, an ice slope of such steepness, and the weather condition of this altitude, are not to be trifled with. When I left camp the morning air was crisp but not cold, but when I reached 10,000 feet the temperature was down to freezing. Up to the foot of the Island the air was calm, only now-and-then stirred by a gust of wind that seemingly blew from no determinable direction or streight down from the blue of the sky. But at the upper part of the Island and at the foot of the Red Banks a stiff, steady, cold wind swept down from the gap at Thumb Rock, which here, at the place of my present position, blew as an icy gale over the crest of the snow wall. It blew with such force that I did not dare to stand upright and, as I was not in vigorous motion at the moment the bitter cold soon crept through my body. That wind pierced like needles my blanket jacket, woolen shirt, and corduroy britches and worst of all, I had no gloves. - From chopping steps with the short-handled axe my hands where numb already and I

53 questioned the possibility whether I would succeed in chopping steps into that snow wall deep enough not only for the accent, but for a secure retreat. - And I did not know what was beyond. -1 realized [I had] underestimated Mount Shasta and came to the conclusion that wind-proof clothes, an ice-axe, and lined leather gloves should make up the equipment for climbing this mountain. Thus I admitted to be defeated by Shasta and his mountain demons - Wind and Cold. —

In six hours and fifteen minutes of slow climbing, much looking at the scenery, examining flowers and rocks, I attained the altitude of approximately 13,000 feet. If my vision did not deceive me I was at the same level with the top of Thumb Rock that loomed conspicuously in shape of a triangular pinnacle from the lower east end of the Red Banks. The scenery up here was very impressive, wild, primaeval beautiful. - A wilderness of red, brown, and black rocks of most weird forms, and snow and ice of dazzling whiteness and transparent emerald in its shade, and above it all the cupula of a cloudless sky of deepest indigo. - The world and all alive are far below; up here not a sign, no signs of any living beings. Only the wind howls and roars as it sweeps around tall cliffs and through narrow gaps.

I retraced my steps over the same route I came, taking quite a few photographs along the way. About five- hundred feet farther down, the surface of the snow was softened by now to enjoy the fun of glissading, in upright position and, of course, taking spills once in a while. Doing so in the morning when the snow was ice-crusted and hard would have been dangerous business. There also was a considerable flow of snow water now; it rushed and gurgled under the snow and emerged in thawed-out places among the boulders as a silt-laden foaming brook, gushing down

54 the ravine, only to disappear again under the lower moraines and lava flows. Also by thawing much loose rock material became freed now from the crags of the high ridges. They fell with an audible grinding, crackling, and metallic clinking, adding to the great heaps of talus below, but now and then a block would come leaping and spinning down the snow field like a cannon ball.

It took me two hours to make the Lodge and upon arriving I was much pleased to find the crowd gone and myself the only one to stay over. Even Mack went to the valley to return tomorrow with a load of supplies. - The first thing I did now was the taking of a bath in a tub of Shasta's icy water and that was followed by generous quantities of hot tea and beans. I had not eaten nor taken a drink during the climb. During the remainder of the afternoon I botanized around Horse Camp and added a few species to the list: Penstemon gracilentus, Gilia aggregata, Eriogonum polypodum, Polygonum shastense, Monardella odoratissema, Aster shastensis, Lupinus ornatus, Lupinus lyally, Lupinus albicaulis, Chrysothamnus bloomed, Streptanthus orbiculatus, Arctostaphylos nevadensis.

August 19.

At the Shasta Alpine Lodge I would like to dream away a week, a month, or a whole summer. -1 turned my back on it with the resolution to return and conquer Shasta. - Before I entered the forest I looked back once more to the Red Banks: from down here the slopes, the snow fields, the rocks above appeared so smooth and easy. Plainly could I distinguish the highest rock and the snowwall where I set and shivered in the cold blast, accepting my defeat.

I left the Lodge at 9 a.m. and it took three hours to make Sisson. Half way down on the trail I met Mack

55 leading a pack horse loaded with supplies. He wondered why I did not make the mountain, seemingly being under the impression that one who has climbed in the Alps should regard Shasta as easy play. Well, I told my experience and we parted with an Auf Wiedersehn. - The last three miles from the Zig-zag to Sisson certainly are a tiresome hot drag.

That afternoon I still drove to a camp in the forest some miles south of Dunsmuir, and the next day early in the morning I started for the inferno of the Sacramento Valley.

The elevations along my route of travel are as following: Marysville 72 feet Chico 193 " Red Bluff 339 " Redding 556 " Dunsmuir 2,284 " Sisson 3,555 " Shasta Alpine Lodge 8,000 " Shasta Red Banks 13,000 "

56 ASSOCIATION FOR NORTHERN CAUFORNIA RECORDS AND RESEARCH CHICO, CAUFORNIA