Adamant Mountain. On August 1 George Bell with David Michael on one rope, Graham and Corky Matthews with Moses Goddard on another, and I with Rob Wallace on the third located a new route on Adamant Mountain and combined it with the first direct ascent of its westerly neighbor, Turret. Over many years past, attempts had been made to force a route through the crevasses of the Turret branch of the Granite Glacier, but always unsuccessfully. This year being one of a very late spring the snow conditions were more appropriate and we made it. The first cracks were passed on the Austerity side, although Dr. Bell and Judge Michael managed to struggle by them under Adamant. We crossed the bergschrund under the north face of Adamant and following a strenuous 400-foot lead across thin snow above the schrund, we attained the col. Here we had first lunch, about five hours from Fairy Meadow. It was only a few hundred feet up to Turret over steep but firm snow, which tended to surface slides in the warm sun. An hour later we recrossed the col on our way up to the north cliffs of Adamant. These, too, went easily and shortly after one p.m. we had another lunch on the main summit of Adamant. Yet another lunch was eaten after we had crossed the many other subsidiary summits working our way to the east along some unusually interesting cornices. A previous attempt by Jo Kato’s party up the east ridge had failed because of the snow conditions but fortunately left tracks for us to follow down through the crevasses under the Stickle. We ended up back at Fairy Meadow after a 14-hour round trip.

William Lowell Putnam