Seeking rest and shelter from this persistent punishment, I approached a crag and when only a few yards away was struck and overturned by the milling air-current around it. The air was so agitated around this crag that its churnings followed me, like disturbed water, under and behind the large rock-fragments, where shelter was hoped for but only partly secured. [Illustration: WIND-BLOWN TREES AT TIMBER-LINE] On the last slope below the meter the wind simply played with me. I was overthrown, tripped, knocked down, blown explosively off my feet and dropped. Sometimes the wind dropped me heavily, but just as often it eased me down. I made no attempt to stand erect; most of the time this was impossible and at all times it was very dangerous. Now and then the wind rolled me as I lay resting upon a smooth place. Advancing was akin to swimming a whirlpool or to wrestling one's way up a slope despite the ceaseless opposition of a vigorous, tireless opponent. At last I crawled and climbed up to the buzzing cups of the meter. So swiftly were they rotating they formed a blurred circle, like a fast-revolving life-preserver. The meter showed that the wind was passing with a speed of from one hundred and sixty-five to one hundred and seventy miles an hour. The meter blew up--or, rather, flew to pieces--during a swifter spurt. The wind so loudly ripped and roared round the top of the peak that I determined to scale the summit and experience its wildest and most eloquent efforts. All my strength and climbing knowledge were required to prevent my being literally blown out of converging rock channels through which the wind gushed; again and again I clung with all my might to avoid being torn from the ledges. Fortunately not a bruise was received, though many times this was narrowly avoided. The top of the peak, an area of between three and four acres and comparatively level, was in an easy eddy, almost a calm when compared with the wind's activities below and near by. Apparently the wind-current collided so forcefully with the western wall of the peak that it was thrown far above the summit before recovering to continue its way eastward; but against the resisting spurs and pinnacles a little below summit-level the wind roared, boomed, and crashed in its determined, passionate onsweep.