fat, handsome cones, wild roses straggling around the edges of the clearing as if to fence it in. A path led back through dense woods to a little stream rippling over a mosaic of granite pebbles and black bits of obsidian. Clumps of golden birches crowded the stream, their yellow catkins drooping, pendant-like over the water. Wild iris bloomed beside budding columbine.
The 56 people who settled themselves to camp around the edges of the clearing and in little bays bulging from it, ranged in age from 5 months to 64 years, including half a dozen children under five. Cooking fires soon were burning, the smell of wood smoke blending with the aromas of brewing coffee, broiling steaks and canned stew. Eric Kent built a central warming fire while his daughter Kathy, not quite two, watched him, big-eyed with the fascination of it. Parker Severson came back from reconnoitering in the woods round about and reported flushing two deer.
Even the 5-month-old son of the Garver Lights of Long Beach enjoyed the evening campfire, cooing from the depths of a snug blanket. "He's being socialized," his mother explained with a smile. It seemed unusually balmy for an elevation of 7500 feet. Marion Dean led "Home on the Range," There's a Long, Long Trail" and a dozen other favorite campfire songs.
Lloyd Balsam's announcement that the climb to the summit of Glass Mountain would begin at eight on Sunday morning brought exclamations of satisfaction from some who remembered desert peak climbs that began at three a.m. Forty-one of us would climb.
Climbing from this campsite to the 11,127-foot summit, 3500 feet of elevation is gained in about six miles. There was no official trail, but the impression which we made on the deer trails Leader Lloyd chose to follow will probably mark the route for a long time.
We contoured up the west slope of the canyon under the Jeffrey pines until a rocky buttress barred our way. Zigzagging up beside the buttress we were soon high enough on the slope to look back over the canyon's mouth and see the road trailing out over the sage flat toward the Owens River. A continuous line of snowy Sierra peaks stood against the sky.
On the opposite side of the canyon the slope, supporting a dense stand of pines, culminated in a rocky pinnacle. Bits of obsidian tinkled in the mixture of sand and pumice that slid underfoot. Bittelbrush, covered with yellow blooms, filled the air with the scent of honey and attracted bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The leaves of
The Scree Run
Focus hasn't a chance when both camera and subjects are skidding down scree. The long pumice slopes made the descent of Glass Mountain easy, fast and fun.
the mountain mahogany bristled dark green against silver bark. A tiny rosy trumpet with yellow veins in its throat grew close to the ground, one of the less common species of mimulus.
"See that long slide over there?" asked Lloyd, pointing to a steep scree run of buff-colored pumice with bits of obsidian sparkling in it. "What do you say we try coming down that way?" From across the canyon it looked smooth and boulder-free, promising a safe and fast descent.
The blue of Crowley Lake came into view at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. Overhead a mountain bluebird chased a hawk. Some granite boulders along the trail looked worm-eaten where foreign particles had weathered out. We passed a strange mushroom, table-high, made up of alternate layers of obsidian and sandstone, and another that looked as if chunks of obsidian had been haphazardly cemented together to make a rough pedestal.
Lloyd led with an easy pace, allowing plenty of time for resting, catching up, identifying plants and rocks, admiring the views and taking pictures, and visiting. His pace encouraged people new to mountain climbing and was undoubtedly responsible for the fact that all made the summit without difficulty.
A lava flow capped the top of the ridge. The taller pines had all been left behind but smaller, more limber
evergreens continued to the summit in ever thinning groups, their branches blown leeward. We walked over mounds of coarsely broken obsidian that resembled heaps of broken bottles which, to our surprise, did not cut into our boots as badly as had the commoner type of lava we had encountered on other volcanic mountains, the iron-like masses pitted with airholes.
When one sees, side by side, the smooth, glossy black of obsidian and the grainy gray of granite, it is bard to believe that they are made up of essentially the same elements. Obsidian pushes up out of a volcano in a mass too viscous to crystallize and cools rapidly with a minimum of air holes. Granite also begins as hot magma but cools slowly, underground, and crystallizes.
Since obsidian was a valuable raw material to the early Indians for arrow- heads, spear points, knives and bide scrapers; we kept scanning the ground for "worked" pieces. Ken Rich found a flake that showed signs of working but further search yielded no others. Others found pieces with gray bandings and some of mottled red.
The Paiute Indians who used to inhabit Owens Valley in large numbers and whose descendants still live there, traded obsidian with coastal tribes for shells, and with inland tribes for hides. When an Indian found a new source of obsidian he didn't stake a personal claim to it. It belonged to the tribe as
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