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NOTES FROM MY TUOLUMNE JOURNAL William L. Neely, Ranger-Naturalist

There are some mountaineers who see the mountains as gymnastic exercises. According to the climbing guides a mountain is either "interesting" or "uninteresting", depending upon the problems of getting up. The top is all-important. Thus Mt. Dana is an uninteresting mountain. The Lost Arrow is interesting. That the Polemonium grows atop Mt. Dana and not on Lost Arrow is of no concern. At least it has not been reported on Lost Arrow and I haven't been up lately to see. It may be that to them a mountain becomes more interesting in ratio to the number of pitons, expansion bolts, ropes and belays needed. A climb is also put into categories of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th class climbs. Dana is a 1st class climb, meaning any suitable footgear will do. The classes progress into degrees of difficult and increasing dependence upon blacksmith leavings, until with class 6 one needs direct aid all the way. A vertical wall or overhang with few or no cracks, joints or handholds involves 6th class climbing. You can try this at home. If you want to paint the second story of your house from the outside you will need a ladder. That is direct aid and put yourself down to a 6th class climb. Then their are mountaineers who are out to "do" the mountains. Once they are "done" they are done, and the climber moves on to a different area. I see in the register on Mt. Dana that one climber "did" Koip, Kuna, and Parker Peaks, and all of Kuna Crest, then crossed over to Mt. Gibbs, thence across the saddle to Mt. Dana. He added he will "do the Conness group tomorrow". Unfortunately, some of these peaks have no register on them, so that some of the climbs will be in vain. This kind of climber must be what Muir called "time poor". He cannot munch and savor a peak and return again for other nibbles. He must skip from peak to peak, get a smattering from each, namely from the summits, which being the smallest part of the peak is also the most readily comprehensive. The broad base which holds up the top demand too much time. New sensations, new thrills await on the next peak; hop to it. There is the mountaineer who climbs because someone said to come to them and get their glad tidings, who climbs with all the joy and anticipation of youth, yet with the unhurried pace of age, who is not out for conquest of the top, yet finds points and fractures and cracks in the rocks not as handholds but as anatomy and history of the mountain. He is aware of the mass and depth and age of the mountain, feels the rock as part of the substance, yet also is concerned with the vesture of the slopes, the gardens of wildflowers, the pioneering lichens, and he walks from surprise to surprise. He may realize that mountains are not upthrust masses of rock but actually remnants of old flat lands that have been chewed away on all sides by water and ice. After the fifteenth climb of Mt. Dana it becomes a familiar and loved friend. One of the pleasures I had in exploring the Clark Range was the new view I got of Dana, miles away. The mountain changes its clothes weekly, it seems. One time it is bathed by stiff, cold winds, the next week It is swathed in Phlox, Draba, and Podistera blooms. Dana is a place to be, not a place to conquer. I was passed on the way by some huffity-puffity hikers out to make a record. What sorrowful amusement! How dejected they are if they find their time beaten by two minutes! Time is the essence. If their foot landed upon and crushed a clump of Polemonium among the rocks near the top, too bad, there was no time to pick that kind

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