Mount Hope

“ We took a couple of photographs, then carried on to the east. At last we found a passage through, and carried on through smaller crevasses to Mount Hope, or we hoped it was the mountain by that name. We can see a great glacier ahead which we take for the Beardmore, which this mountain is on, but the position on the chart seems wrong. [It was not.—E.H.S.] We nearly arrived at the ice-foot when Richards saw something to the right, which turned out to be two of Captain Scott’s sledges, upright, but three-quarters buried in snow. ”

“ Days of idleness are not always the emptiest; life may justify its halts; our spirits may mount to their sublimest pitch in hours of play. At least, the temper of that holiday, and her eager prizing and recording of it, show well the manner of woman that she was—her passionate love of beauty, her eager stretching out to all that makes life beautiful, her spirit, sensitive to all around, taking color from this and that, reflecting back every ray which the bounty of nature or of man poured upon it, her great faculty of living. ”

“ It was about two o’clock when we reached the summit, and rested a moment to look back over our new Alps, which were hard and distinct under direct,{115} unpoetic light; yet with all their dense gray and white reality, their long, sculptured ranks, and cold, still summits, we gave them a lingering, farewell look, which was not without its deep fulness of emotion, then turned our backs and hurried down the débris slope into the rocky amphitheatre at the foot of Mount Brewer, and by five o’clock had reached our old camp-ground. ”

“ From the summit there is a commanding view of the Promontory, and you may mark its varying breadth and inequalities, its storm indented figure, and its broken fantastic cliffs, abrupt declivities, and deep gorges, as by some earthquake cleft.
There is, indeed, a charm connected with this mount, before which the pageant of pomp, and the heralds of emblazonry must bow down. That charm is
The power of thought, the magic of the mind. ”

“ We have a secret fear that they, the material, are dominating us, the spiritual. But as soon as we have stood on their summit we feel that we dominate them—that we, the spiritual, have ascendancy over them, the material. And if man stands on Earth's highest summit he will have an increased pride and confidence in himself in his struggle for ascendancy over matter. This is the incalculable good which the ascent of Mount Everest will confer. ”

“ As verdant forests and luxuriant vegetation adorn and beautify the sides, and white fleecy clouds cap the summits, of a rock-based mountain, softening the rugged cliffs, filling up the chasms, smoothing the precipices, and concealing the roughness of the path which winds up the ascent; so should Hope, with its varied hues, tinge and adorn the ever-during frame-work reared by Reason. So should it be—but, is it so? Do not men strive rather to throw a semblance of reason over their hopes? ”

“ There was not food for all, and yet the ones who undertook to cross the mountains were undoubtedly sacrificing their lives for those who remained in camp. If some should go, those who were left behind might be able to preserve life until spring, or until relief came. The stoutest hearts quailed before the thought of battling with the deep drifts, the storms, and the unknown dangers which lurked on the summits. The bravest shuddered at the idea of leaving the cabins and venturing out into the drear and dismal wilderness of snow. ”

“ Excitement reigned through every camp that night. Many had lost all their stock, their sole dependence for the prosecution of their journey, or even their safe return to the States. Families, men, women and children thrown out in the wilderness hundreds of miles from civilized beings, and their main hope gone. Would those in pursuit recover the horses? or would they dash on over these boundless plains in the frenzy of fear, growing more frantic as they proceeded, as many had before them, until nature could stand no more, and then drop dead in their tracks? ”

“ While we were having breakfast, a fitful wind had soughed ominously about the hut, and by the time we had proceeded about two miles up the glacier, and before it was yet dawn, this wind had increased in strength, and was blowing steadily. The great mountains around us seemed dwarfed in the feeble light before the dawning, and the cold, grey snows of the Minarets, Mount Green, Mount Walter, and Elie de Beaumont loomed ghost-like against the western sky. ”

“ You, my dear friend, who are well acquainted from my infancy with my clambering disposition, which, within these few months, has carried me to the top of both Vesuvius and Ætna, will not be much surprised to learn, that I have attempted, with success, to mount to the summit of Mont Blanc; an aerial journey which the sight of this mountain has inspired many persons with a wish to accomplish; but in which few have engaged, and still fewer have succeeded. ”

“ Perhaps no feature of the mountain scenery is more certain to awake a shudder, than such "schutes," as looked up to from below or down upon from above; as the thought of a passage-way is inevitable, followed by the remembrance of the headlong fall of any man who should attempt a progress so nearly perpendicular, and that followed by the imagination that the gazer has really attempted it and is falling. Mount Webster and Mount Willard, at the White Mountain Notch, are more marked than almost any of the others, by such features ”

“ Our numbed fingers clung once more to the death-cold rocks, as we shiveringly awaited the word of our leader seeking the way above us, we watching meanwhile the glory of the sunrise which wakens the cold-blue ice world, till summit after summit is flashed into glowing life, and our own numbed bodies are warmed once more to that dauntless energy which makes life and motion a crowning joy. ”

“ The general view from the summit consists of a sublime assemblage of ice-born rocks and mountains, long wavering ridges, meadows, lakes, and forest-covered moraines, hundreds of square miles of them. The lofty summit-peaks rise grandly along the sky to the east, the gray pillared slopes of the Hoffman Range toward the west, and a billowy sea of shining rocks like the Monument, some of them almost as high and which from their peculiar sculpture seem to be rolling westward in the middle ground, something like breaking waves. ”

“ The view we enjoyed from the summit could hardly be surpassed in sublimity and grandeur; but one feels far from home so high in the sky, so much so that one is inclined to guess that, apart from the acquisition of knowledge and the exhilaration of climbing, more pleasure is to be found at the foot of the mountains than on their tops. Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below. ”

“ Anything like a breakdown of the transport will be fatal; soft snow on the mountain will be an impregnable defence; a big wind will send back the strongest; even so small a matter as a boot fitting a shade too tight may endanger one man's foot and involve the whole party in retreat. The climbers must have above all things, if they are to win through, good fortune, and the greatest good fortune of all for mountaineers, some constant spirit of kindness in Mount Everest itself, the forgetfulness for long enough of its more cruel moods ”

“ You can follow a path through woods, no matter how thick a cloud you may be in, but when you get up on the bare ledges of the Presidentials, the path is marked only by little piles of stones, called cairns, every fifty feet or so, and when a cloud comes up you can’t see, often, from one to the next, and if you once get away from the path and started in a wrong direction, you are lost. Many people have been lost on Mount Washington just that way, and either starved or frozen to death. ”

“ We shall live serene and uplifted lives on the mount, if we know His name and have bound ourselves to Him, and the troubles and cares and changes and duties and joys of this present will be away down below us, like the lowly cottages in some poor village, seen from the mountain top, the squalor out of sight, the magnitude diminished, the noise and tumult dimmed to a mere murmur that interrupts not the sacred silence of the lofty peak where we dwell with God. ”

“ Besides, memory that merged to conscious realization was playing in lambent flames through his whole being round the form of the figure against the skyline of the Ridge.
The light of the cow-boy camp blinked through the lilac mist of the Valley. A veil impalpable as dreams hovered over the River. The boom and roll of a snow cornice falling somewhere in the Gorge behind the Holy Cross came in dull rolling muffled thunder through the spruce forests. ”

“ Thick darkness enveloped the mountain as we approached the head of the profound gulf separating us from Mount Clay, which is the most remarkable object seen at any time either during the ascent or descent. Into this pitchy ravine, into its midnight blackness, a long and brilliant train of sparks trailed downward from the locomotive, so that we seemed being transported heavenward in a chariot of fire. This flaming torch, lighting us on, now disclosed snow and ice on all sides. We had successfully attained the last slope which conceals the railway from the valley. ”

“ Of the many trying experiences through which our lads had passed since their introduction to each other in Victoria, none had presented so many hopeless features as the present. They were high up on a mighty mountain, whose terrible wilderness of rock and glacier, precipice and chasm, limitless snow-field and trackless forest, stretched for weary leagues in every direction; beyond hope of human aid ”

“ Fronting us stood the west chain, a great mural ridge watched over by two dominant heights, Kaweah Peak and Mount Brewer, its wonderful profile defining against the western sky a multitude of peaks and spires. Bold buttresses jut out through fields of ice, and reach down stone arms among snow and débris. North and south of us the higher, or eastern, summit stretched on in miles and miles of snow peaks, the farthest horizon still crowded with their white points. ”

“ And in that bosom, and that refuge, are you hiding yourself until all Earth's “calamities be overpast?” The deeper you hide yourself in the clefts of the smitten Rock, the safer you are. Oh! do you ever pause and think that there is a day coming, when this Valley of Tears “and all the works that are therein, shall be burned up?” When “God shall arise in the glory of His Majesty, to shake terribly the Earth.” When every mountain peak shall be black with tempest—and the whole valley shall be a sheet of living fire! ”

“ Even as the Great Master of old, who in time of tribulation "went up alone on to a high mountain," we hear the still small voice. Haply sometimes we may heed, and carry back to the dust and turmoil of the valley a glimpse of the vision that never was on land or sea. ”

“ The climb ends with the conquest of a half-mile of vertical elevation over a grade that tests muscle, wind and nerve. This is real mountaineering, and as the novice clutches the rocks, or carefully follows in the steps cut by the guide, he recalls a command well adapted to such trying situations: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." But the danger is more apparent than real, and the goal is soon reached.
Prof. Harry Fielding Reid and party exploring Zigzag glacier, south side of Mount Hood. ”

“ Precipices white with light and snow-fields of incandescent brilliance grouped themselves along walls and slopes. All around us, in wild, huge heaps, lay wrecks of glacier and avalanche.
We started again, passing the last tree, and began to climb painfully up loose débris and lodged blocks of the north wall. From here to the very foot of that granite pyramid which crowns the mountain, we found neither difficulty nor danger, only a long,{340} tedious climb over footing which, from time to time, gave way provokingly. ”

“ A council was held by the garrison, and scouts were sent up the Hockhocking, in order to ascertain the strength of the foe, and the probable point of attack. In the month of October, and on one of the balmiest days of our Indian summer, two men could have been seen emerging out of the thick plumb and hazel bushes skirting the prairie, and stealthily climbing the eastern declivity of that most remarkable promontory, now known as Mount Pleasant, whose western summit gives a commanding view to the eye of what is doing on the prairie. ”

“ Six miles from the Hope Junction Hotel, the Hope River is crossed, and, ten miles further on, we reach the base of a high range where the houses of a few cockatoo settlers are situated. The traveller now begins to ascend this range, which winds about in the most tiresome and fantastic manner. The road to the summit is very long, but not steep. On the opposite side the descent is of a corresponding nature, but, owing to the greater and thicker growth of bush, is more sheltered. When the summit is reached a good view of the surrounding wild and romantic country is obtainable. ”

“ Another element in the perfection of hope is its continuity. That hits home to us all, does it not? Sometimes in calm weather we catch a sight of the gleaming battlements of 'the City which hath foundations,' away across the sea, and then mists and driving storms come up and hide it. There is a great mountain in Central Africa which if a man wishes to see he must seize a fortunate hour in the early morning, and for all the rest of the day it is swathed in clouds, invisible. Is that like your hope, Christian man and woman, gleaming out now and then, and then again swallowed up in the darkness? ”