a quarter past four P.M.
This was good ; this would be romantic ; two hundred and fifty people grouped on the windy summit , with their hair flying and their red blankets flapping , in the solemn presence of the coming sun , would be a striking and memorable spectacle . So it was good luck , not ill luck , that we had missed those other sunrises . We were informed by the guide-book that we were now 3,228 feet above the level of the lake -- therefore full two-thirds of our journey had been accomplished . We got away at a quarter past four P.M. ; a hundred yards above the hotel the railway divided ; one track went straight up the steep hill , the other one turned square off to the right , with a very slight grade . We took the latter , and followed it more than a mile , turned a rocky corner , and came in sight of a handsome new hotel . If we had gone on , we should have arrived at the summit , but Harris preferred to ask a lot of questions -- as usual , of a man who did n't know anything -- and he told us to go back and follow the other route . We did so .