Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1884-06-26
COLD TEA ON Pop0CATAPETL.
HOW Two American Girls Made the
Ascent of the Great Mountain Few
Weeks A@o
Denver Tribune

Ascent of the Great Mountain a Few
Weeks Ago.
Denver Tribune.
Minerva and with our guides left
Amecamicca on the 18th of April.
The first night we passed far up the
slope at the house of Don Damingo
lila. By the next morning we were
twelve thousand feet above the sea.
At an elevation of fifteen thousand
feet the scenes were grand-impres
sive, even to the Yankee girl who had
learned TO climb at Pixies Peak. The
clouds gathered and fastened us on
and up. And now the struggle began.
Our alpenstocks were no fancy affairs
-chamois horn tip and other contin-
entail nonsense TT but stout sticks,
piked with iron, which We drove down
desperate depths and to which we
chung with aesparing grip Our
guide-book advises travellers 10 pro
vide themselves with overcoats, wells,
and alpenstock which they drive into
the ashes and volcanic sand. We
had INDUCED in wild jokes about tax
ing wells and ov2rcoats ''tO drive into
the volcanic sand, but we found
danger of literally following this ad-
vice, danger Of sinking ourselves. wells,
overcoats and all, beyond eXhuma-
ton. We houndered through the
black sand and gained the first futed
ruffle of the white skirt of snow that
drops down from the cone. Then
clinging to our guides, scufiling, slip
ping over the rough blocks of Ice and
snow falling back to rest but mo-
ment, then staggering on again drag
ged and pushed; hands torn and bleed
ing from clGtchnlg the sharp edge Of
the Ice barriers; tumbling ON, half
crazed with pains that dart through
eyes and forehead, for four long hours
we travelled, until at last we nearly
totter over the edge of the bleak and
yawning gulf and hear roaring in our
ears the triumphant voice of the guide
as ne cries; Mira aqui esta la era
ter" Look here is the crater. !
Woman's pluck has won and we have
the satisfaction of seeing poor bruin,
who resembles Hamlet only in being
fiat and scant of breath" the last to
reach the goal of our united ambi-
ton.
Rolled III my warm Scots plaid and
the darling pains through the fore
head relieved by a slight hemorrage
from both nose and ears, | was soon
as snug as though in my own rug
below, and a glass of cold tea brought
me to a realizing sense of making the
most of the hour we were to spend on
the summit. The day was clear and
fine, but | must be truthful, and say
that the view above fifteen thousand
feet is not satisfactory. An area of
100, 600 square miles is well enough to
talk of, but too vast for human limi-
tations and human eyes. Indistinct
and shadowy, here the earth and the
sky seem closing down ike a book
that is read. " The clouds lay below,
and in one direction a fierce storm
was spending it's fury. We could see
the lightning fash making strange
riffs among tina dark shadows.
The crater is very similar to Nesu-
vius, only being about three times as
large, and is silent except occasional
reverberations of sound from the sui
phur works below. a dense cloud Of
birthstone blue ascends forever and
ever from the horrible depths To day
more than one hundred Indians are
working in the crater. They ascend
and descend continually, not on q
heavenly ladder but by means Of a
rude whim and a turbine which is
being put IN for hosting. Fancy It'll
turbine wheel eighteen thousand
feet in the air. They have buts
eighteen hundred feet down in the
crater. And down in that inferno
they actually live, often not coming
up in the sunlight for a month at a
time. Their teeth soon wear away
and their clothes wear away and dry
off, but | was told they are content
and suffer no III effects that money
and metzcal (Mexican tanglefoot)
would not mend. But it needs a
union of the Imagination of Dante
with he pen of Dore TO give you their
pictures.
The descent was rapid. The guides
rolled us up in straw mats and slid us
down the glacier-like cone. A grand
eXper ence in tobogganing it was,
but the bruises will long outlast the
experience.
Another night we spent with the
feeble comics, and the following day
were riding among the caci and
palms of the valley.