mountaineering in Alaska. In the ascent of this
twenty-thousand-foot mountain every member of the party climbed at least
sixty thousand feet. It is this going down and doing it all over again
that is the heart-breaking part of climbing.

[Illustration: First camp in the Grand Basin--16,000 feet, looking up.]

It was in the Grand Basin that the writer began to be seriously affected
by the altitude, to be disturbed by a shortness of breath that with each
advance grew more distressingly acute. While at rest he was not
troubled; mere existence imposed no unusual burden, but even a slight
exertion would be followed by a spell of panting, and climbing with a
pack was interrupted at every dozen or score of steps by the necessity
of stopping to regain breath. There was no nausea or headache or any
other symptom of "mountain sickness." Indeed, it is hard for us to
understand that affection as many climbers describe it. It has been said
again and again to resemble seasickness in all its symptoms. Now the
writer is of the unfortunate company that are seasick on the slightest
provocation. Even rough water on the wide stretches of the lower Yukon,
when a wind is blowing upstream and the launch is pitching and tossing,
will give him qualms. But no one of the four of us had any such feeling
on the mountain at any time. Shortness of breath we all suffered from,
though none other so acutely as myself. When it was evident that the
progress of the party was hindered by the constant stops on my account,
the contents of my pack were distributed amongst the others and my load
reduced to the mercurial barometer and the instruments, and, later, to
the mercurial barometer alone. It was some mortification not to be able
to do one's share of the packing, but there was no help for it, and the
other shoulders were young and strong and kindly.

[Sidenote: Tobacco]

With some hope of improving his wind, the writer had reduced his smoking
to two pipes a day so soon as the head of the glacier had been reached,
and had abandoned tobacco altogether when camp was first made on the
ridge; but it is questionable if smoking in moderation has much or any
effect. Karstens, who smoked continually, and Walter, who had never
smoked in his life, had the best wind of the party. It is probably much
more a matter of age. Karstens was a man of thirty-two years, and the
two boys were just twenty-one, while the writer approached fifty. None
of us slept as well as usu