Note L — JOURNAL

[Footnote L: Repeated efforts to ascend the Grand Teton, made prior to the year 1872, all terminated in failure. On the 29th day of July of that year the summit was reached by James Stevenson, of the U.S. Geological Survey, and Nathaniel P. Langford, the writer of this diary. An account of this ascent was published in Scribner's (now Century) Magazine for June, 1873. The next ascent was made in 1898 by Rev. Frank S. Spalding, of Erie, Pennsylvania, and W.O. Owen, of Wyoming, and two assistants. This ascent was accomplished after two failures of Mr. Owen in previous years to reach the summit. Mr. Owen then asserted that the summit of the mountain was not reached in 1872 by Stevenson and Langford. His efforts—in which Mr. Spalding had no part—to impeach the statement of these gentlemen failed utterly. Mr. Spalding, who was the first member of his party to reach the summit, writes: "I believe that Mr. Langford reached the summit because he says he did, and because the difficulties of the ascent were not great enough to have prevented any good climber from having successfully scaled the peak, * * * and I cannot understand why Mr. Owen failed so many times before he succeeded."]