Peaks 10,800 and 10,600, Farnham Group, Purcells. A reconnaissance I made in 1970 of the two high peaks northwest of the Farnham Tower revealed that climbing them from the east would be exceedingly difficult and especially dangerous. So this past summer F. Knight and M. Wilson joined me for an attempt on the peaks from the west. On August 11 we drove up the Horsethief Creek road to the ACC “parking lot” and packed up Farnham Creek about a mile, camping around 5300 feet. Early the next morning we ascended the steep western slopes just north of the stream draining the high basin between the two peaks. When we reached the 9000-foot level we contoured eastward until we were below the final southwest slopes of the 10,800-foot peak, the summit of which we gained over easy talus, about 6½ hours from camp. Finding no evidence of prior ascent, we built a giant cairn and deposited our first-ascent record, naming the peak “Mount Meden-Agan” (after the cryptic message recorded at the Oracle of Delphi, and meaning “nothing-too-much”). We descended to 9000 feet to bivouac. The next morning we hiked over to the 10,000-foot saddle south of Meden-Agan. After a precarious, exposed traverse on scree and mud around the base of the eastern buttresses of Peak 10,600, we reached the southeastern slopes. Ascending over third-class rock and snow to the summit ridge, we gained the true summit in about 2½ hours from our bivouac. We found a cairn and first-ascent record left July 29 by D. Jones, J. Christian, and L. Gallagher, who had climbed from the southern valley. They had named the peak “Mount Atlong” after the ACC climber killed July 27 on Mount Commander. We retraced our route, reaching Farnham Creek in 4 hours.

CURTIS A. WAGNER