as no building on the summit,
and no shelter station on the way. Imagine these brave fellows, daring
the storms and blizzards and fierce temperatures of winter calmly
ascending these rugged and steep slopes, in the face of every kind of
winter threat, merely to make scientific observations. In March, 1906,
Professor Johnson and Dr. Rudolph spent the night at timber-line in
a pit dug in the snow to obtain protection from a gale, at the
temperature of 5 deg. Fahr. _below_ zero, and fought their way to
the summit. But so withering was the gale at that altitude even at
mid-day, that a precipitate retreat was made to avoid freezing. The
faces of the climbers showed plainly the punishment received. Three
days later Dr. Church attempted to rescue the record just as the storm
was passing. He made his way in an impenetrable fog to 10,000 feet,
when the snow and ice-crystals deposited by the storm in a state of
unstable equilibrium on crust and trees were hurled by a sudden
gale high into the air in a blinding blizzard. During his retreat he
wandered into the wildest part of the mountain before he escaped from
the skirts of the storm.

Other experiences read like chapters from Peary's or Nansen's records
in the Frozen North, and they are just as heroic and thrilling. Yet
in face of all these physical difficulties, which only the most superb
courage and enthusiasm could overcome, Dr. Church writes that, to
the spirit, the mountain reveals itself, at midnight and at noon,
at twilight and at dawn, in storm and in calm, in frost-plume and in
verdure, as a wonderland so remote from the ordinary experiences of
life that the traveler unconsciously deems that he is entering another
world.

In the last days of October, 1913, I was privileged to make the trip
from Reno in the company of Dr. Church, and two others. We were just
ahead of winter's storms, however, though Old Boreas raved somewhat
wildly on the summit and covered it with snow a few hours after
our descent. The experience was one long to be remembered, and the
personal touch of the heroic spirit afforded by the trip will be a
permanent inspiration.

CHAPTER XXXVII

LAKE TAHOE IN WINTER[1]

BY DR. J.E. CHURCH, JR., OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA

[Footnote 1: By courtesy of _Sunset_ magazine.]

Lake Tahoe is an ideal winter resort for the red-blooded. For the
Viking and the near Viking; for the man and the woman who, for the
very exhilaration of it, seek the braci