Harvard Mountaineering Club

depositing a new coat of snow on the Dawson Peaks. But by evening,
the wind had died; the rain, hail, and snow ceased, with a rosy
hue tinting the clouds.
The subsequent day, clear and beautiful, saw us' top Donkin
Pass and roar down to Mitre Creek, where above its southern bank,
on the ridge base of Cyprian Peak, we pitched our main camp. It
was perhaps the final two hundred feet to reach the top of Donkin
Pass that gave us the hardest climbing of the trip. Directly beneath
the pass lay a sixty foot cliff with perhaps a climbable chimney in it,
but below this, a steep snow slope, isolated from the glacier by a
wicked bergschrund, made the route impractical with packs. Instead,
we ascended from the glacier up a steep snow slope to the
right, cutting steps to a point just below the level of the pass. Then
we traversed the snowfield to the rocky ridge of. Donkin, still below
its crest. Here we met some difficulty, having to cut steps up a steep
slope of snow-covered talus alternating with ice, all with good exposure.
An ice pulpit, hugging the ridge above our proposed route,
afforded an excellent-belay stance from which to protect the climber
_ cutting steps just a few feet below. Later, with a fixed rope, we
gained the ridge crest a short distance above the pass and rapidly
descended the southern grassy slopes to beat out the approqching
darkness.
The next three -days found us recoIllloitering the West Ridge
-of Cyprian Peak, subsequently climbing Cyprian proper by a new
and interesting route, ascendIng Donkin from the south, and runping
excursions over to the Purity Range in an effort to peer intb
Battle Valley. To climb Cyprian we were off early in the morning
(for once), quickly covering the initial portion of the long West
Ridge. This presented a fairly easy knife-edge scramble, although
occasionally interesting bits of rock climbing and chimney work appeared.
The ridge was characterized by numerous spires, some of
which we made _ brief first ascents of; others, we tactfully avoided.
By early afternoon, we were well along, but, logically, the three man
rope found itself falling behind and decided to turn back. Harrison
and I, eager to continue, found the route progressively easier, with\
belaying rio longer. necessary. Three-ten found us in the gully
dire