the glacier basin, ramparted by a wall of
ice-blocks as high as itself, we found overwhelmed and prostrate upon
our return, but the willow shoots with which we had staked our trail
upon the glacier were all standing.

Long as it was, the slope was ended at last, and we came straight to the
great upstanding granite slabs amongst which is the natural
camping-place in the pass that gives access to the Grand Basin. We named
that pass the Parker Pass, and the rock tower of the ridge that rises
immediately above it, the most conspicuous feature of this region from
below, we named the Browne Tower. The Parker-Browne party was the first
to camp at this spot, for the astonishing "sourdough" pioneers made no
camp at all above the low saddle of the ridge (as it then existed), but
took all the way to the summit of the North Peak in one gigantic stride.
The names of Parker and Browne should surely be permanently associated
with this mountain they were so nearly successful in climbing, and we
found no better places to name for them.

There is only one difficulty about the naming of this pass; strictly
speaking, it is not a pass at all, and the writer does not know of any
mountaineering term that technically describes it. Yet it should bear a
name, for it is the doorway to the upper glacier, through which all
those who would reach the summit must enter. On the one hand rises the
Browne Tower, with the Northeast Ridge sweeping away beyond it toward
the South Peak. On the other hand, the ice of the upper glacier plunges
to its fall. The upstanding blocks of granite on a little level shoulder
of the ridge lead around to the base of the cliffs of the Northeast
Ridge, and it is around the base of those cliffs that the way lies to
the midst of the Grand Basin. So the Parker Pass we call it and desire
that it should be named.

[Illustration: The Upper Basin reached at last. Our camp at the Parker
Pass at 15,000 feet.]

[Sidenote: Karstens Ridge]

And while names are before us, the writer would ask permission to bestow
another. Having nothing to his credit in the matter at all, as the
narrative has already indicated, he feels free to say that in his
opinion the conquest of the difficulties of the earthquake-shattered
ridge was an exploit that called for high qualities of judgment and
cautious daring, and would, he thinks, be considered a brilliant piece
of mountaineering anywhere in the world. He would like to name that
ridge Karstens