timber; then the trail began to climb up the valley, and the next
eight or ten miles developed into an almost continuous ascent,
sometimes on easy grades, sometimes winding up the sides of a hill as
steep as a high-pitched roof. At last beautiful Lake Kinney came in
sight, with Robson rising in stupendous slopes and precipices and
buttresses from its shores. Our way lay around the north shore of the
lake, over a pebbly flat, around the shoulder of the mountain and into
the Valley of a Thousand Falls--an enchanted valley, and we who had
invaded it were nothing but dream-folk, wandering spell-bound among
scenes more gorgeous than those of Sinbad the Sailor. Here was colour
in riotous profusion, and form, of flower and tree, of sombre cliff
and glittering snow-field and remote summit, music of mountain stream
and waterfall, of waterfalls innumerable, and with it all a sublime
spirit of rest and peace. What did it matter in this Vale of Content
that beyond the outer mountains men were sweating and struggling for
Dead Sea fruit. Here at least one could forget for the moment that he
was one of the same folly-driven race.
Out of the valley at last we climbed, up and up past the Falls of the
Pool and the Emperor Falls, up to the shores of Berg Lake whose
sapphire waters are dotted with white craft launched from the eternal
snows of the King of Mountains. Here at the end of a long day's
journey, a journey overflowing with experience, we sat down to rest
among the tents of the Alpine Climbers. Here, also, we listened to the
story--surely one of fine pluck and endurance--of how George Kinney
and Donald (popularly known as "Curlie") Phillips against all possible
odds fought their way to the supreme peak of Robson. Let us hear it in
their own words (_Alpine Club Journal_, 1910), only premising that
this first ascent of the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies was made
in August, 1909, after two unsuccessful attempts in 1907 and 1908, and
that the final ascent was only accomplished after twenty days of
continuous struggle, during which they were repeatedly driven back
from the peak by impossible conditions.
"At last," says Mr. Kinney, "the weather began to clear up, and
Monday, August 9th, we again climbed the rugged north shoulder.
Crossing the difficult shale slope, we passed the camp spots of our
former trips, and with our heavy fifty-pound packs struggled up those
fearful cliffs till we reached an altitude of nearly ten thousand five
hundred feet." Here they ran into a blizzard, and after a short,
hopeless struggle, had to clamber down again to their base camp. Their
provisions were almost exhausted, and they were many long miles from
any possible source of supply. For three days it stormed, and they
lived on birds and marmot. Finally on the 12th it cleared, and they
again climbed to the top of the west shoulder. "Here, at an altitude
equal to that of Mount Stephen, we chopped away a couple of feet of
snow and ice, and feathered our nest with dry slate stones. We
shivered over the little fire that warmed our stew, and then, amid
earth's grandest scenes, we went to bed with the sun and shivered
through a wretched night.
"Friday, August 13th, dawned cold and clear, but with the clouds
gathering in the south. Using our blankets for a wind-brake we made
a fire with a handful of sticks, and nearly froze as we ate out of the
pot of boiling stew on the little fire. Then we laid rocks on our
blankets so they would not blow away, and facing the icy wind from the
south, started up the west side of the upper part of the peak. The
snow was in the finest climbing condition, and the rock-work though
steep offered good going. Rapidly working our way to the south, and
crossing several ridges, we had reached in an hour the first of two
long cliffs that formed horizontal ramparts all around the peak. We
lost half an hour getting up this cliff.
"The clouds that came up with a strong south wind had gradually
obscured the peak, till by the time we reached the cliff they were
swirling by us on our level, and at the top of the cliff it began to
snow. For a moment I stood silent, and then turning to my companion
said: 'Curlie! my heart is broken.' For a storm on the peak meant
avalanches on that fearful slope, and there would be no escaping them,
so I thought that we would have to turn back, and our provisions were
now so low that we would not have enough to make another two-day trip
up the mountain. It meant that this was our last chance; but, to my
surprise, it did not snow much, the clouds being mostly a dense mist.
In a few minutes I said, 'Let us make a rush for the little peak,'
meaning the north edge of the peak which was directly above us. 'All
right,' said Curlie, from whom I never heard a word of discouragement,
and away we started, keeping to the hard snow slopes. Though these
were extremely steep, the snow was in such splendid condition that we
could just stick our toes in and climb right up hand over hand.
"By the time we had conquered the second of the long ramparts of
cliffs that form black threads across the white of the peak, we
concluded that it was not going to snow very hard, as the clouds were
mostly mist and sleet. Swinging again towards the south, we headed
directly for the highest point of the mountain, which we could see now
and then through the clouds. Small transverse cliffs of rock were
constantly encountered, but they were so broken that we could easily
get up them by keeping to the snow of the little draws.
"For hours we steadily climbed those dreadful slopes. So fearfully
steep were they that we climbed for hundreds of feet where standing
erect in our footholds the surface of the slopes was not more than a
foot and a half from our faces, while the average angle must have been
over sixty degrees. There were no places where we could rest. Every
few minutes we would make footholds in the snow large enough to enable
us to stand on our heels as well as our toes, or we would distribute
our weight on toe and hand-holds and rest by lying up against the wall
of snow. On all the upper climb we did nearly the whole work on our
toes and hands only. The clouds were a blessing in a way, for they
shut out the view of the fearful depths below. A single slip any time
during that day meant a slide to death. At times the storm was so
thick that we could see but a few yards, and the sleet would cut our
faces and nearly blind us. Our clothes and hair were one frozen mass
of snow and ice.
"When within five hundred feet of the top, we encountered a number of
cliffs covered with overhanging masses of snow, that were almost
impossible to negotiate, and the snow at that altitude was so dry that
it would crumble to powder and offer poor footing. We got in several
difficult places that were hard to overcome, and fought our way up the
last cliffs only to find an almost insurmountable difficulty. The
prevailing winds being from the west and south, the snow driven by
the fierce gales had built out against the wind in fantastic masses of
crystal, forming huge cornices all along the crest of the peak, that
can easily be distinguished from the mouth of the Grand Fork some ten
miles away. We finally floundered through these treacherous masses and
stood, at last, on the very summit of Mount Robson.
"I was astonished to find myself looking into a gulf right before me.
Telling Phillips to anchor himself well, for he was still below me, I
struck the edge of the snow with the staff of my ice axe and it cut in
to my very feet, and through that little gap that I had made in the
cornice, I was looking down a sheer wall of precipice that reached to
the glacier at the foot of Berg Lake, thousands of feet below. I was
on a needle peak that rose so abruptly that even cornices cannot build
out very far on it. Baring my head, I said, 'In the name of Almighty
God, by whose strength I have climbed here, I capture this peak, Mount
Robson, for my own country and for the Alpine Club of Canada.'"
The descent was not accomplished without difficulty and danger,
especially as a warm wind was melting the lower slopes and frequent
detours had to be made to avoid places where the ice or rock
beneath the thin snow would allow of no footholds whatever. It took
five hours to climb to the summit from the camp on the top of the west
shoulder, and seven hours to return to the same spot. During those
twelve hours it was impossible either to eat or rest. It was long
after dark before they reached the base camp, the entire climb
occupying twenty hours. "We were so tired we could hardly eat or rest
and our feet were very sore from making toe-holds in the hard snow.
But we had stood on the crown of Mount Robson, and the struggle had
been a desperate one. Three times we had made two-day climbs, spending
ninety-six hours in all above ten thousand feet altitude, so far
north. During the twenty days we were at Camp Robson we captured five
virgin peaks, including Mount Robson, and made twenty-three big
climbs."
[Illustration: THE PURPLE CRAGS OF ROCHE MIETTE. (_From a painting by
George Horne Russell_) _Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Company_]
[Illustration: MOUNT ROBSON. (_From the Grand Fork_) _R. C. W. Lett_]
[Illustration: EMPEROR FALLS. _R. C. W. Lett_]
XIV
ON THE MOOSE RIVER TRAIL
A pleasant evening had been spent on the shores of Berg Lake, admiring
the wonderful views of Robson and its encircling glaciers, with Mount
Resplendant, the Dome and the Helmet, Whitehorn Peak off to the right,
Rearguard immediately over Berg Lake, Ptarmigan Peak to our left, and
Mount Mumm, named after the well-known English Alpine climber, behind
us; surely an unrivalled collection of gigantic ice-crowned peaks,
encircling one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. A few days
before two members of the Alpine Club with the Swiss guide Konrad Kain
had climbed to the summit of Robson, and while we were in camp another
party came down, unsuccessful, after three days spent on the peak.
They had been driven back when within a few hundred feet of the summit
by a dangerous snow storm. After the sun went down we walked over to
the big camp-fire of the Alpine Club, and listened to the climbing
experiences of the mountaineers, regretting that our plans would not
permit us to join one of the parties in an attack on one of the less
formidable peaks.
Through the good offices of the Superintendent of Jasper Park, we had
been fortunate enough to secure the services of Fred Stephens to take
us through the Moose River country. So much has been said about
guides, that it may not be amiss to explain, for the benefit of those
who are not familiar with the Canadian Rockies, that there are two
quite distinct classes of mountain guides, one possessing special
knowledge of the high peaks and how to get up them, the other knowing
like a book the intricate wilderness that lies about their feet. The
climbing guides are Swiss, trained in the Alps. Two or three of them
were engaged by the Canadian Pacific Railway some years ago, when
mountain climbers first began to realise the splendid possibilities of
the country about Laggan, Field and Glacier. The guides spent the
summer in the Rockies, and returned to Switzerland for the winter.
Since then the number has steadily increased, and now many of the
Swiss guides have settled permanently in the Canadian Alps, which are
now rapidly becoming popular as a winter as well as a summer
resort.
The trail guides are an entirely different class of men. They belong
to the west, have been trained there, and know its ways. Some of them
have been trappers or traders, many are hunters, and not a few have
been cowboys, or miners. All know the mountains and the mountain
trails, and most of them are good companions either in camp or on the
trail, quietly competent when work is to be done, resourceful in the
innumerable emergencies of mountain travel, and a fountain of shrewd
wisdom and anecdote around the camp fire. And of all trail guides in
the Canadian Rockies none is the superior of Fred Stephens, whether as
guide, philosopher or comrade. We who had heard his praises sung by
others, congratulated ourselves when we learned that he was to take us
through the Moose River country.
Early next morning we were up and doing. Breakfast was despatched, the
tents struck, the horses driven in to camp, packs made up and securely
fastened to the backs of the pack-horses by means of the famous
diamond hitch, our own ponies saddled, and we were off for Moose Pass,
waving a reluctant farewell to our hosts of the Alpine Club as we
trotted through the camp--a tent city gay with bunting, and instinct
with the wholesome enthusiasm, good-fellowship, and hospitality of the
mountaineers.
As we crossed the slight ridge at the foot of Robson Glacier, which at
this point forms the continental divide, we paused to study for a
moment the curious family history of two great water systems, born in
the same glacier. From two blue ice caves in the Robson Glacier, one
on either side of the ridge of the terminal moraine, flow two
sparkling streams. One flows southwest into Berg Lake, the Grand Fork,
the Fraser, and the Pacific Ocean; the other flows northeast into Lake
Adolphus, the Smoky, Peace River, Slave River, Great Slave Lake, the
Mackenzie, and the Arctic Ocean. Turning our backs on the Berg Lake
tributary, after wishing it a pleasant journey to the Pacific, we
followed its brother down to Lake Adolphus and for some miles beyond,
when we turned east up Calumet Creek toward Moose Pass.
Near the summit of the pass we found ourselves in the midst of one of
the most exquisite of Alpine meadows. Imagine a great bowl of dark
rock relieved here and there with patches of fresh snow, and at the
foot of this bowl a soft emerald carpet, the green almost hidden by
glowing patches of flowers, asters and arbutus and harebell, purple
and white heather, lady's tresses and columbine, moss campion, the
twin flower and the forget-me-not. Think of it, you who treasure a
little patch of forget-me-nots in your garden, think of walking your
horse reverently through an acre of forget-me-nots, growing so thickly
that the blue of them could be seen long before one reached the place
where they grew, so thickly that one was compelled to the sacrilege of
treading down thousands of blossoms as we crossed the meadow. In
honour of the lady of our party, whom we believed to be the first
white woman to pass this way, we named this beautiful spot Merwin
Meadow.
Before we leave the meadow, listen for a moment to a writer who
combines the imagination of a poet with the exact knowledge of a
scientist, Dr. A. P. Coleman:
"If one halts by chance anywhere on a mountain pass, all sorts of
thrilling things are going on around. Lovely flowers are opening
eagerly to the sun and wind of Spring--in mid-August, with September's
snows just at hand, a whole year's work of blossom and seed to be
accomplished before the ten months' winter sleep begins. Bees are
tumbling over them intoxicated with honey and the joy of life while it
is summer. Even the humming-birds, with jewels on their breast as if
straight from the tropics, are not afraid to skim up the mountain
sides, poise over a bunch of white heather, and pass with a flash from
flower to flower. The marmots with aldermanic vests are whistling and
'making hay while the sun shines,' and one may see their bundles of
choice herbs spread on a flat stone to dry, while the little striped
gophers are busy too. Time enough to rest in the winter.
"Everything full of bustle and haste and of joy, what could be more
inspiring than the flowery meadows above tree-line when the warm sun
shines in the six weeks of summer! The full splendour and ecstasy of a
whole year's life piled into six weeks after snow has thawed and
before it falls again!
"Higher up even the snow itself is alive with the red snow plant and
the black glacier flea, like the rest of the world making the most of
summer; and as you take your way across the snow to the mountain top,
what a wonderful world opens out! How strangely the world has been
built, bed after bed of limestone or slate or quartzite, pale grey or
pale green or dark red or purple, built into cathedrals or castles,
or crumpled like coloured cloths from the rag-bag, squeezed together
into arches and troughs, into V's and S's and M's ten miles long and
two miles high; or else sheets of rock twenty thousand feet thick have
been sliced into blocks and tilted up to play leapfrog with one
another.
"And then the sculpturing that is going on! One is right in the midst
of the workshop bustle where mountains are being carved into
pinnacles, magnificent cathedral doors that never open, towers that
never had a keeper--all being shaped before one's eyes of the mighty
beds and blocks of limestone and quartzite that were once the sea
bottom. You can watch the tools at work, the chisel and gouge, the
file and the sandpaper. All the workmen are hard at it this spring
morning in August; the quarryman Frost has been busy over night, as
you hear from the thunder of big blocks quarried from the cliffs
across the valley; there is a dazzling gleam on the moist, polished
rocks which Craftsman Glacier has just handed over to the daylight;
and you can watch how recklessly the waterfall is cutting its way
down, slicing the great banks of rock with canyons! It is inspiring to
visit the mountains any day in the year, but especially so in the July
or August springtime, when a fresh start is made, and plants,
animals, patient glaciers, hustling torrents, roaring rivers, shining
lakes are all hard at work rough-hewing or putting finishing touches
on an ever new world."
We tried to keep our minds on such thoughts as these, as we left the
meadow behind and crossed a ridge of most abominably sharp scree, hard
on our feet and footwear as we trudged sulkily through it, and still
harder on the unshod horses who followed patiently after. The ridge
led to a long slope down the British Columbia side of the pass--for
between the foot of Robson Glacier and Moose Pass we had crossed a
wedge of Alberta--and then mile upon mile of muskeg, where as we
floundered slowly ahead we alternately admired Fred Stephens' unerring
skill in following a trail that only became faintly visible for a foot
or two every three or four hundred yards, and damned him heartily for
leading us into such a slough of despond. However, even the worst
muskeg must have an end, and at last we and our weary horses pulled
out on the other side, trotted happily through a bit of virgin forest,
and cheered the guide when he pointed ahead to our camping ground, an
ideal spot in a clearing beside the East Branch of the Moose River.
We had made twenty miles from Berg Lake, pretty good going in such a
country, a third of the journey being through heavy muskeg; and our
second meal that day was at seven in the evening. Fred Stephens is
without a peer as a guide, but he would never qualify as instructor in
a cooking school. Nevertheless his bannocks that night seemed to us
the very food of the gods. It may have been because he made them in a
gold pan, or it may have been the dry humour of his stories, or
perhaps it was the fact that breakfast seemed so remote that we had
forgotten the existence of such a meal, but the fact remains that that
luncheon-supper of bannocks and bacon left us at peace with the world.
Behind the camp rose an attractive little mountain offering some
rather interesting rock climbing, and one of us made up his mind to
have a try at it the following morning before breakfast. He managed to
get into his clothes without disturbing the rest of the party, and
pocketing a cold bannock started off for the mountain. The first
obstacle appeared in the shape of a lively branch of the Moose, which
had not been noticed the night before. A rapid survey up and down
stream revealed no means of getting across dry, and there was nothing
for it but to plunge in and wade across. It was waist deep in
midstream, and the water was not only wet but most exceedingly cold.
However, there was exercise enough ahead to overcome the chill of the
reception.
A long scramble up a slope covered with closely matted bushes led at
last to the rocks, and the rocks to a series of ledges. Being a
novice, the climber lost much time in searching for practicable routes
to the summit, and in an attempt to get up a chimney sent down such an
avalanche of rock that the camp was aroused and began to contemplate a
searching expedition for the remains of a fool climber. However, fate
had some other end in view, and the climber went on his way. A steep
slope of very fine, loose shale ending in a sheer drop of some hundred
feet finally brought him to a standstill. He had little more than an
hour to get back to camp, and it would take all of that to find
another way up to the summit. That little mountain remained
unconquered. He scrambled down to a draw between the hills, crossed a
snow patch, swung down a long slope, plunged through the uninviting
creek, and was back in time to find the party packed and ready to
march.
Our way lay down the East Branch, partly over a fairly good trail,
partly through a repetition of yesterday's muskeg. One of the
pack-horses took it into his head to do pioneer work in opening up new
trails through the bush, and was sent in disgrace to the rear of the
string where the guide's helper could keep a watchful eye on him. The
helper was a plucky but inexperienced little chap, and his limited
vocabulary filled the pack-horses with contempt. Throughout that day
we who were ahead with the guide could hear every little while far in
the rear the faint cry, "Buckskin! Oh, Bu-u-ck-skin!" Finally the cry
changed to, "O Fred! Pack's off!" and the philosophic guide cantered
back to bring pack and pack-horse together again. Nothing could
possibly look more meek and inoffensive than the mild-eyed Buckskin
when he marched into camp that night, but he had given more trouble
than the rest of the thirteen horses combined. He probably said to
himself that he was a horse ahead of his generation, and that pioneers
were generally misunderstood.
We camped on the West Branch of the Moose, about a mile above its
junction with the East Branch, having again made twenty miles from our
last camp. Once more we camped by the river's side, with a fine range
of mountains opposite, and a splendid view of the Reef Glaciers at the
head of the valley. Resplendent and Robson were off to the west, but
hidden behind intervening ridges. We had been hoping all day to see
mountain goat, but found nothing but a wisp of wool on a bush above a
salt lick.
The following morning we started down the Moose, with a succession of
beautiful views up and down the valley. A deep creek which had been
roughly bridged with logs gave us some trouble. One of the
pack-horses--not the unfortunate Buckskin--went through, and it needed
the united exertions of four men to get him out. The other horses, who
had seen the accident and were still on the wrong side of the stream,
refused to have anything to do with the bridge, and even after we had
repaired it they were only with the utmost difficulty coaxed across
one at a time.
Finally we topped the last ridge, and looked down into the valley of
the Fraser. The railway track, looking like a thread in the distance,
seemed utterly unfamiliar after our few days on the trail. We had made
a wide circle around Robson, starting from Robson station, and
coming back to the railway at what was known to the construction
gangs as "Mile 17." We had supper in Reading's Camp, near the mouth of
Grant Brook, and took the eastbound train back to Jasper.