THE TRACK OF THE AVALANCHE
The trail to Avalanche Basin starts from the shores of Lake McDonald
and plunges almost immediately into forests mysterious with primeval
grandeur. Perhaps their denseness is the reason for the wealth of
rank-growing weed and shrub that forms one vast screen beneath the
spreading branches of pine, tamarack and kingly cedar trees. Whether
this is the cause or not, the trail is richer in vegetation than
any other that lays open the secrets of the forest's heart. Tall,
juicy-stalked bear-weed, devil's walking cane, prickly with venomous
thorns, slim, graceful stems of wild hollyhock crowned with pale,
lavender blossoms, and broad-leafed thimble berry, bearing fragile,
crapy-petalled flowers, weave their verdure into a tangled mass. An
occasional path crushed down freshly shows where a bear has lately been,
for these lavish brakes are a haunt of the three varieties that dwell
in the surrounding mountains--the black, the brown and the silver tip,
or grizzly. Strange sounds come up out of the silence, borne through
dim, dark vistas where shy things peep and dry twigs snap under careful,
stealthy tread. A woodpecker drums resonantly on the bole of a tree;
shrill, elfin music quavers with reedy sweetness from the security of
dense thickets. A haunting spell steals over the heart and turns the
mind to thoughts of sirens, water sprites, and Piping Pan, for in spite
of generations of culture, somewhat of that ancient worship of the Wild
is revived in us when we are in the virgin woods. The hypnotic charm of
the great silence and solitude possesses us and there comes a feeling
as of memory of half-forgotten things lived in a dream,--or was it
reality? The inarticulate voices of the past come calling in sylvan
melody out of the closed lips of the centuries, re-awakening the life of
our forebears and revealing to us a fleeting glimpse of something which
we cannot define or understand. In this spell of the wilderness we not
only feel the emotion of young world-life and race-childhood, but that
of our own more personal childhood when the pursuit of a butterfly or a
flower winged our feet and warmed our hearts. It may be the scent of a
familiar shrub, the flight of a bird, or even the shimmer of dew that
brings us afresh, for a moment, that gaily painted memory which the
years may dim but never quite obliterate.
The trail is dark with shadow,--the awe of the woods,--roofed with
boughs and so still that we seem to hear the breathing of the trees.
A sudden turn unfolds a little lake, bright with a living pattern of
lily-pads, bursting buds and golden water-lilies. Through a rift in
the pines the distant mountains appear; then the green tide of branches
flows together and there is nothing but silence and shadow and the
forest. The woods deepen. Low, bushy maples grow among the pines,
Colorado spruce sheds its silver sheen amidst the more somber foliage,
and towering high above the loftiest pines and tamaracks, of magnificent
circumference and sweep of limb, are the cedars, the Lords of the
Forest. Off to one side of the trail, among the thick-sown trees, is a
giant boulder completely covered with moss, a throne fit for Pan. The
pines around it are of goodly size, yet they sprang and grew, perhaps
centuries after that huge stone came hurtling downward in a great
avalanche, or was borne from the mountain tops by the slow progress of a
glacier.
Again the forest pageant changes. There are groves of pine stricken
with hoary age, bearded like patriarchs with long, pendent streamers
of colourless moss; then comes a young growth of pine, fore-doomed to
early death which already shows in the bronze of premature decay. It is
a beautiful spot, nevertheless, balsam-sweet and strewn with needles
that nurture violets of yellow and purple, twin flowers and Queen's Cups.
There is a sound like wind among the trees though not a branch stirs,
and presently there bursts into view a sight of wild, exhilarating
grandeur. A swift, tumultuous stream rushing down a steep, narrow
channel, clean-cut as a sabre stroke, dashes headlong into a
rainbow-ridden fall. The volume of water is churned into a passion of
swirling foam that flings its light mist heavenward to descend again in
rain. Ferny, mist-fed, moss-grown banks slope gently to the declivity
and over smooth, emerald cushions, lacy leaf and trailing boughs, tiny,
crystal drops, glinting prismatic hues, tremble and pass away. The air
is very sweet with a new and unfamiliar fragrance, and amidst the moss,
half hidden beneath grosser leaf and protruding root, is a flower, the
loveliest of all the lovely woodland host. It is a small, snowy blossom
of five petals and a golden heart, growing on a slender stem from a
cluster of glossy, earth-clinging leaves, and as though to hide its
chaste, shy beauty, the modest flower turns its face downward towards
the ground. Its scent is strong and heavy like that of the magnolia. The
guide, who travels the mountains over from the earliest budding to the
ultimate passing of the flowers, has never seen this stranger blossom
before, and we find it on no other trail. It was unknown, unnamed, so we
call it the Star of the Mountains and leave it blooming in the secrecy
of that elfin dell.
Above the thunder of the fall sounds a slight, shrill bird note and
through the clouds of spray darts a little brown bird, dipping almost
into the boiling current, rising upward with a graceful swell and a
wild, free lilt, perching finally on a tiny point of rock just over the
shock and roar of the flood. This strange little winged sprite is a
water-ouzel who makes her home and raises her young upon these insecure,
spray-drenched walls, with the water-challenge pealing its menace and
breathing its chill on her nest. She and her kind haunt the lonely
mountain creeks and rivers, seeking some fall or cataract that flings
its spray and sings its song to the silent, ice-imprisoned world. Once
the mating season is over and the young are fledged, each bird takes its
solitary flight and becomes a veritable spirit of the woodland streams.
The dense forests become broken and sheer cliffs rise to stupendous
heights. Upon their sharp and slender pinnacles wild goat and bighorn
sheep dwell, and in passing we see a goat so far away on those dizzy
steeps that he seems the merest patch of white. Through this gorge,
between the mountains, are deep hewn furrows where year after year,
century after century, the burden of ice from the peaks descends in
avalanches. In the Spring when the first thaw begins, a deafening roar
like a cannonade heralds the furious onslaught of ice and snow. At such
times the Avalanche Trail is a dangerous way to travel, and even now a
distant booming reminds us that the mountain forces are never idle, that
in their serenity there is force, in their mystery there is still the
energy of creation.
Through this narrow passage between overhanging crags, the trail
continues until, bearing upward, it suddenly crosses a pretty,
milky-hued stream, and thence to a hill-side overlooking a sheet of
water opaque and pearly white, in a setting of dark-browed woods. It
is Avalanche Lake. The water is perfectly calm, not a breath of air
rustles the slightest leaf, but there is no reflection of throbbing,
blue sky, of green woods or purple mountains--it does not thrill to the
passion of the Summer, flash back azure and gold and picture in its
responsive heart the glories of earth and heaven. Because of this, it is
different from all the other lakes of these mountains and the shell-like
whiteness of its surface, pallidly beautiful as a great pearl, has a
peculiar beauty none the less striking for its strangeness. The cause
of the milkiness of these waters seems at first without satisfactory
explanation, but as we examine them more closely we see that they are
charged with infinite multitudes of tiny air bubbles, and every stream
that feeds the lake, having fallen from enormous heights, is likewise
full of infinitesimal air beads. On the other hand, some contend that
the water, pouring down from the glacier is white with particles of
finely pulverized rock.
Pushing straight past the lake, through almost impenetrable thickets
of whipping willows that fight like live things to guard from vandal
footsteps what lies beyond, the journey reaches its climax in Avalanche
Basin. There, in that vast amphitheatre sculptured from the living rock
by glaciers, carved and scarred by innumerable avalanches descending
through the ages, overhung by the Piegan ice fields, six silver streams
leap the full height of the great rock walls. The falls seem to melt
away before they touch the reality of earth, veritable spirits, born of
the snowdrift and the sun; white ghosts spending themselves in spray to
reascend into the clouds.
[Illustration: ON THE TRAIL TO MT. LINCOLN]
A rich growth of green grass, coloured with broad splashes of Indian
Paint Brush, covers the sloping floor of the basin. Standing on its
extreme elevation upon a platform of rock, and thence overlooking the
country that lies ahead, the scene is one of uplifting majesty. Below,
within the sombre circle of the pines, is the lake, palely fair as a
white sea shell or a milk opal whose latent colours never quite shine
forth from its cloudy depths. Farther still, is the gorge, opening
like a gateway into the region of the avalanche, and farther still,
is Heaven's Peak, mingling with the cloudless sky. The strata on these
mountains laid bare as though but yesterday they were rent asunder, flow
in undulating ribbons of colour varying from red-violet to dull, antique
gold. But between the quivering sky of Summer and the warm, flower-sown
earth, is a ghostly tide of purple haze, an amethystine shadow which
touches every rock and tree and peak with magical illusion. And through
that veil, as through enchantment, each rock, each tree, each peak is
transfigured and for a brief hour is given a semblance of the divine.
The gorge is filled with flowing purple, the glorified gateway might be
Heaven's Gate, even as the dominant mountain, royal in the thickening
blue distance, is Heaven's Peak.
Here the sordid world seems to melt away; the sunshine has got into our
blood and the transfiguring haze has penetrated even to our hearts.
We seem so intimately a part of this mighty, primeval place where the
infinity of the past and the infinity of the future are married in one
great mystery, that we dare to listen for secrets of the one from the
chant of the falls; to lift the veil of circumventing blue and peer into
the other. So, standing upon that rock platform, from the reality of the
present we speed our souls into the ideality of Time's poles. Though the
song of the water-voices that have sung æons, rings in our ears, and the
living letter of the world-book is shown in the mountain's open page,
we may not know the portent of either message. And though we gaze with
seeking vision through the shadow into the ultimate blue above, the haze
draws its protecting garment thicker, closer about the treasure-house of
Nature, and the sun darts amber lances earthward to blind aspiring eyes.
So we pass humbly upon our way, the water-voices singing in our ears,
the arch of Heaven trailing its garment over earth, still guarding the
riddle of the future in its azure keep.
_INDIAN SUMMER_