"The Occupation of Conness" from the Overland Monthly

[ManOfTooManySports]

I referred to this in a TR, but I think this may be a better forum.

When picking up a permit at TM to go to Young Lakes and up Mt. Conness, the ranger suggested we look for structures at the top of Mt. Conness from survey work done in the mining days. Back home I did an Internet search and came across a narrative by Prof. George Davidson of his 1890 expedition to set up a temporary observatory on the top of Conness. It is in the Overland Monthly edited by Bret Harte.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8wINAQ ... &q&f=false" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What makes the account fascinating to me is his descriptions of the roads, trails, terrain and weather. We certainly do take the Tioga Road for granted. There are walls and concrete structures near and at the top that I assume remain from the expedition based on my reading of the report. The occasional steps up the last part of the climb appear to have been from that expedition.

"Some trifling work had been done to lay out a trail, but Mr. Gilbert had confessed that his first effort had been a very severe test. After looking over the whole line the men were put at work on the trail, and a total of about twenty day' labor made it passable but never free of danger."