Evening came on just as I got fairly into the main canyon.

It is about a mile wide and a little less than two miles long.
The crumbling spurs of Red Mountain bound it on the north, the somber cliffs of Merced Mountain on the south and a deeply-serrated, splintered ridge curving around from mountain to mountain shuts it in on the east.
My camp was on the brink of one of the lakes in a thicket of mountain hemlock, partly sheltered from the wind.

Early next morning I set out to trace the ancient glacier to its head.

Passing around the north shore of my camp lake I followed the main stream from one lakelet to another.

The dwarf pines and hemlocks disappeared and the stream was bordered with icicles.