The party camped at the foot of the mountain, in 1901, and set out at daybreak the following morning. A stiff climb brought them to the base of a steep cliff beyond which rose the final peak. "Before us," says Dr. Fay, "rose this beetling face of dark rock, with little snow patches here and there revealing possible stations, between which only cracks and slight protuberances offered scanty holds for foot and hand." With great care, however, they finally reached the top of the cliff. Here, however, they were brought to a standstill. "A most ominous situation revealed itself. The final peak was before us, and its summit hardly three hundred feet distant--a great white hissing mass,--a precipice on the hidden left side, a steep snow-slope of perhaps 65 to 70 degrees on the right. Under the July sun its whole surface was seemingly in a state of flux, slipping over the underlying mass with a constant, threatening hiss. A second narrow arête led across to this final summit. This, too, was corniced, and in a remarkable way. The swirl of the wind had produced an unusual spectacle. At the beginning and at the end, the cornice hung out to the right; in the middle, a reversed section of it overhung the abyss on the left. "The two similar ones could doubtless have been passed. To cross the middle section meant trusting ourselves to the sun-beaten slope already in avalanching condition. Indeed, while we studied it, and as if to furnish the final argument to our debate, the snow on our right impinging against the cornice broke away, and down went a well-developed avalanche a couple of thousand feet over that much-tilted surface, and vanished in a sheer plunge that landed it perhaps three thousand feet below that. It was a suggestive and persuasive sight. Feeling sure that we had seen enough for one day we beat a careful retreat." The 1903 climb was practically identical with that of 1901, but the conditions were entirely different. "The broken arête was indeed under a draping of recent snow, but no cornice was in evidence. It was 'plain sailing'--and yet very interesting, for the arête was so narrow and thin that one astride it could have his left leg vertical over a sheer drop, at first indeed overhanging, of hundreds if not thousands of feet, while its mate pointed down that 76° slope of snow, as silent now as it was noisy in 1901. At eleven o'clock we were on the summit--Goodsir was ours. The repulse of two years ago was forgotten, and our affections went out to the graceful peak, no longer a sullen monster, and, for the joys of that one glorious hour spent on its pure snowy summit, we granted it our love for a lifetime." The same year Professor Parker, with the guides Christian and Hans Kaufmann, made a successful attack on Mount Hungabee, the grim "Chieftain" (as the Indian name is translated) that stands guard at the head of Paradise Valley.