Setting out on the afternoon of November first, with Jerome Fay, mountaineer and guide, in charge of the animals, I was soon plodding wearily upward through the muffled winter woods, the snow of course growing steadily deeper and looser, so that we had to break a trail.  The animals began to get discouraged, and after night and darkness came on they became entangled in a bed of rough lava, where, breaking through four or five feet of mealy snow, their feet were caught between angular boulders.  Here they were in danger of being lost, but after we had removed packs and saddles and assisted their efforts with ropes, they all escaped to the side of a ridge about a thousand feet below the timberline.

To go farther was out of the question, so we were compelled to camp as best we could.  A pitch pine fire speedily changed the temperature and shed a blaze of light on the wild lava-slope and the straggling storm-bent pines around us.  Melted snow answered for coffee, and we had plenty of venison to roast.  Toward midnight I rolled myself in my blankets, slept an hour and a half, arose and ate more venison, tied two days’ provisions to my belt, and set out for the summit, hoping to reach it ere the coming storm should fall.  Jerome accompanied me a little distance above camp and indicated the way as well as he could in the darkness.  He seemed loath to leave me, but, being reassured that I was at home and required no care, he bade me good-bye and returned to camp, ready to lead his animals down the mountain at daybreak.

After I was above the dwarf pines, it was fine practice pushing up the broad unbroken slopes of snow, alone in the solemn silence of the night.  Half the sky was clouded; in the other half the stars sparkled icily in the keen, frosty air; while everywhere the glorious wealth of snow fell away from the summit of the cone in flowing folds, more extensive and continuous than any I had ever seen before.  When day dawned the clouds were crawling slowly and becoming more massive, but gave no intimation of immediate danger, and I pushed on faithfully, though holding myself well in hand, ready to return to the timber; for it was easy to see that the storm was not far off.  The mountain rises ten thousand feet above the general level of the country, in blank exposure to the deep upper currents of the sky, and no labyrinth of peaks and canyons I had ever been in seemed to me so dangerous as these immense slopes, bare against the sky.

The frost was intense, and drifting snow dust made breathing at times rather difficult.  The snow was as dry as meal, and the finer particles drifted freely, rising high in the air, while the larger portions of the crystals rolled like sand.  I frequently sank to my armpits between buried blocks of loose lava, but generally only to my knees.  When tired with walking I still wallowed slowly upward on all fours.  The steepness of the slope—­thirty-five degrees in some places—­made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were being constantly set in motion in the steepest places.  But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy expanse thrilled every nerve and made absolute exhaustion impossible.  I seemed to be walking and wallowing in a cloud; but, holding steadily onward, by half-past ten o’clock I had gained the highest summit.