The Final Ascent

We sat there looking up at the imminent steep scree slope of the final crag of Matterhorn. "That don't look much, we can do it! I said glad now. "No, Ray, that's more than it looks. Do you realize that's a thousand feet more?" "That much?" "Unless we make a run up there, double-time, we'll never make it down again to our camp before nightfall and never make it down to the car at the lodge before tomorrow morning at, well at midnight." Jack Keruac, Dharma Bums We started up, half the time crawling on all fours, the other half walking hunched over forward, on the right side of the ridge, as anyone who has ever made it to the top will tell you to do. The air was thin and the way was steep. The two pictures below are looking back down at the base of the Matterhorn [Gary] started up walking very rapidly and then even running sometimes where the climb had to be to the right or left along ridges of scree. Scree is long landslides of rocks and sand, very difficult to scramble through, always little avalanches going on. At every few steps we took it seemed we were going higher and higher on a terrifying elevator, I gulped when I turned around to look back and see all of the state of California it would seem stretching out in three directions under huge blue skies with frightening planetary space clouds and immense vistas of distant valleys and even plateaus and for all I knew whole Nevadas out there. Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums