| Telescope Peak. overlooking Death
Valley, was given its name In 1861 when the chief of a surveying party reported
he "could see 200 miles In all directions as through a telescope." Today a fine
trail leads to the summit and it is a popular hike among those who go in for
mountain climbing. Here is the story of an ascent made by 51 members of the
Sierra Club.
By LOUISE WERNER |
Valley as
well as Death Valley, demanded a rest stop. Judith and Jocelyn Delmonte, 8 and
10, their faces rosy with exertion, asked for their fathers canteen and
threatened to drink it dry. Chris Vance and Fred Bode, 10 and 11, reached the
saddle deep in a discussion about their respective ascents of Mt. Whitney, the
highest peak in the U.S. "It wasn't hard." said Chris. "But it wasn't exactly
easy either." In the bottom ot Death Valley a haze brooded over Badwater, the lowest point in the United States. Beyond, dull reds and yellows played on the Funeral Mountains. Farther desert ranges undulated to a buff-colored plateau where a series of lava buttes appeared. On the west side of the saddle the escarpment dropped into Panamint Valley, similar to Death Valley |
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| EARLY ON A May morning 60 hikers strung out along a trail that hung like a balcony, 8000 feet above Death Valley. Blue jeans, a red plaid shirt, a yellow sweater. a green parka-splashes of color sauntering past the gray sedimentary rocks of thc slope. A crisp wind blew off the snow-etched ridge that culminated, about seven miles away, in the lovely white point of Telescope Peak, the crown of the Panamint Mountains. At their feet a gully streaked down to bake its feet in the salt flats of the | Death Valley sink. The
Desert Peakers of the Sierra Club of California were in their favorite
environment with their favorite companions. John Delmonte, leading, breathed deep the heady air, forgetting for the moment the tensions of his workaday world as owner-operator of a plastics Factory. As the trail rounded a knoll dotted with Pinyon Pines, and began pulling up toward the ridge, he slowed his pace, remembering that the ages of his party ranged from 8 to 62. The saddle, overlooking Panamint |
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