Glen Dawson

GLEN DAWSON took a bold leap in the summer of 1931 when he signed on to tackle the unclimbed East Face of Mt. Whitney. His only gear: heavy rope and sneakers. Dawson, a boyish 19, Robert Underhill and climbing legend Norman Clyde would join Jules Eichorn, also 19, to make history with a first ascent on the highest mountain in the contiguous U.S. and the Sierra's premier peak.

GLEN DAWSON took a bold leap in the summer of 1931 when he signed on to tackle the unclimbed East Face of Mt. Whitney. His only gear: heavy rope and sneakers. Dawson, a boyish 19, Robert Underhill and climbing legend Norman Clyde would join Jules Eichorn, also 19, to make history with a first ascent on the highest mountain in the contiguous U.S. and the Sierra's premier peak.

Mt. Whitney has posed a significant challenge since it was first ascended in 1873. The first conquest of Whitney turned out to be of Mt. Langley, by Clarence King (1871). John Muir was the first to climb Whitney from the Mountaineer's Route (Oct. 21, 1873). First women to summit: Hope Broughton, Mary Martin, Anna Mills, Mrs. Redd, on Aug. 3, 1878. First scientific use of summit: Professor Samuel Langley for solar observations (August 1881). First overnight summit stay: Capt.

The Sierra Club without rock climbing or mountaineering? As well the Audubon Society without birds, or the Wilderness Society without trees. Climbing has been the heart and soul of the San Francisco-based organization founded by naturalist-mountaineer John Muir and others in 1892. Generations of Californians learned to love the Sierra Nevada through the club's wilderness trips. Muir's concept was to get people into the mountains so that they could really come to know them.

Garvanza Elementary School in Highland Park is celebrating its 100th anniversary this week, a milestone in a history that reflects Los Angeles'. But the anniversary is not quite as simple as one would think. The school is actually 115 years old, having been founded in 1885 when the village of Garvanza was an outpost beyond the city limits. The main building on the campus is indeed old, but not 100.

Muir Dawson, one in a line of Dawsons who ran Los Angeles' oldest continuously operating bookstore, has died. He was 83. Dawson, who oversaw the Dawson's Book Shop for more than 50 years, died Monday night in his Silver Lake home of heart failure, said his son, Michael, who owns and operates the shop now located on Larchmont Boulevard. A partner in the bookstore since 1947, Muir Dawson specialized in rare books on the history of printing.

This begins with a secondhand story about a secondhand book. About a little girl who is now grown up and walks into a bookstore. She is looking for a storybook long lost but unforgotten, unforgettable--the first book she ever read. She could not recall the title exactly, or the author. But it was about horses and it had a blue cover and was big, really big, the size of a serving platter, about that she was sure.

In the clubby world of book collecting, the Zamorano 80 has a cult following. Compiled in 1945 by the Los Angeles-based Zamorano Club, a group of bibliophiles, it's a list of 80 works that are supposed to represent the most distinguished writings on early California history. Only two complete, first-edition collections of the Zamorano 80 are known to exist.

Do you notice that those on the social scene seem to be kicking up their heels in some sort of summer's-coming-devil-may-care euphoria? The Sonance crowd kicks up its heels and kicks off summer at a "Just for Fun" party at the Bistro Garden Pavilion on June 2. The invitations are engraved "sent with love" from Barbara Sanders and Judy Tallarico. The same evening David H.

Mountaineers worldwide consider it the zenith of the Sierra, 14,242 feet of vertigo-inducing walls and saw-toothed ridgelines, the loftiest in a cluster of peaks that guard the eastern flank of Kings Canyon National Park. North Palisade, they will tell you, is to California what the Matterhorn is to the Alps: an international icon, a force of nature that dwarfs any man. Unless that man is David Brower, say those who want to rename the peak for the renowned environmentalist.