hammer and awl for repairing his footgear. Then we came to that long series of slick rock waterfalls which had nearly brought disaster on the last previous trip. Four hours were consumed in detouring these falls. Detours on this precipitous terrain are hard work, but would not be hazardous were it not for the agave, or wild maguey. Agave is the worst enemy of the climber on the desert slope of the San Pedro Martirs. It is a wild species of the plant from which Mexicans derive their fermented drink, puique, and their very potent distilled drink, tequila. Every plant is a roseate of daggerlike blades with a needle-point at the end of each blade. The plant grows on these slopes wherever there is a bit of soil for its roots. And when it cannot find soil it grows in the cracks in the boulders. It is everywhere on this mountainside and a touch of the needle-point means a painful puncture. Every few minutes it would become necessary for the leader to stop and clear a path through or past the agave. This is done as the Mexicans do in harvesting the buds in their maguey fields, by seizing the blade just below its needle, and then turning it back and pushing the sharp point through the fleshy part of the stem below. We saw very little evidence of wild game on the desert slope of the San Pedro Martirs, and I am convinced that the reason is agave. A head-on collision with a formidable roseate of these blades could readily bring death to man or beast. Eventually we reached an elevation above the zone of the agave - and then we encountered manzanita. Manzanita grew so dense in one place that we crossed over from one ledge to another by walking on the tops of the shrubs. There is a sprinkling of coniferous trees above 6000 feet on the desert side of the range, but no fine forests of pine such as are found on the west slope of the San Pedro Martirs. We saw some sturdy oak trees on the upper elevations. Our camp Sunday night, April 4, was at the highest elevation where water was available, about 7800 feet. Actually, we climbed 300 feet higher, and when no water was found, returned to this level. Monday we left camp at 6:45, carrying no packs except our lunch for the day, jackets and cameras. We expected to reach the top and return to this camp by nightfall. We followed the route Wilson McKenney and Malcolm Huey had taken

in 1935, detouring to the right up an almost vertical cliff that blocked the way, then crossing through and over some dense thickets of manzanita, and finally ascending the long talus slope to the crest of the ridge a mile north of El Diablo peak. We worked south along the ridge and an hour later came to the couloir which had turned back my companions of the 1935 expedition. We were now at an elevation where we could look down to the Gulf of California on the east, and into the great gorge of Diablo Canyon on the west. Diablo is a tremendous gash in the range which starts on the desert side a few miles north of Providence Canyon, cuts through the high backbone of the San Pedro Martirs, and then circles south to flank the Martir ridge on the west side. El Picacho del Diablo might be climbed from the desert approach by coming up Diablo Canyon, but I would estimate the one way distance at close to 25 miles, and the required time for a round trip, six to eight days of backpacking. I am sure Diablo has some gorgeous vistas for the photographer whose heart and legs are stout enough to pack his equipment up this great canyon. The couloir which blocked our route to the high peak ahead is a shallow tributary of Canyon Diablo, and the most feasible route appeared to be to drop down about 700 feet on the Diablo side and then work our way up over some great inclined slabs of granite to the summit. "We'll never reach that peak, and get back to camp by dark." Norman estimated. He was right. The sun was just touching the Pacific ocean far off to the west as we reached the summit toward which we had been climbing for three days. This is the one point on the peninsula of Lower California where from the same stance one can see both the Pacific ocean and the Gulf of California. We found a little cairn at the top. In it were records of an ascent made from the west June 16, 1932, by a Sierra Club party consisting of Bestor Robinson, Nathan C. Clarke, Norman Clyde, Walter Brem, Glen Dawson and Dick Jones. A second party consisting of Julia Mortimer, May Pridham, Fred Stitt and R. C. Kendall had registered there June 19, 1935. Also, there was a notation that Don McClain had made the ascent from the west in 1911. We found no record of any previous climb from the desert side, although I have been told on good authority that such an ascent has been made and

that at one time there was a record of it in the cairn. Since our visit there, several other parties have climbed the summit from the west, members of the Sierra Club having reached the top during the last year. It was growing dark, and we had neither food nor bedding, so Norman and I chose to rope off the summit and down the precipitous east side of the ridge as a short-cut back to our base camp. Three ropes took us down into a great bank of snow where we sank waist-deep. After a little floundering we got free and just after dark reached a trickle of water in a canyon where there was an abundant supply of wood. There we bivouacked for the night, taking turns stoking the fire until daybreak. Mexican maps list El Picacho del Diablo elevations at both 10,136 and 10,163. My altimeter, probably less accurate, registered just under 10,300. On the return trip I worked around to a point where I could photograph the series of waterfalls which had forced long detours on this and previous trips. Countless ages of erosion had cut a series of natural tanks down across the slope of a huge granite dome, and each of the pools was fed from above by a waterfall. Standing on the ridge opposite, I counted 10 waterfalls in the series, although the accompanying picture was taken from an angle which does not show all of them. The San Pedro Martirs are wild and rugged, and their upper reaches are inaccessible except to well-equipped climbers-but the beauty of this region is not surpassed anywhere in the high Sierras of either of the Californias. In 1934 when our first climbing party reached the base of the San Pedro Martirs there were no tracks of motor vehicles anywhere in San Felipe Valley. Today a well-graded road connects San Felipe with the dry lake that bears its name, and on the desert adjoining the lake bed caterpillar tractors are leveling a great tract of land for cultivation. Probably in the years ahead this warm fertile valley that lies between the Gulf of California and the range of the San Pedro Martirs will become a highly productive area for wintergrown vegetables and fruits. It will become quite civilized. But the great granite-capped peak which towers overhead-a mountain so forbidding the Mexicans named it "The Peak of the Devil"-will remain a challenge to those who seek out the really tough places on which to try their climbing prowess. El Picacho del Diablo will never become too civilized.

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