Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/120

Rh The two similar ones could doubtless have been passed. To cross the middle of the section meant trusting ourselves to the sun-beaten slope already in avalanching condition. Indeed, while we studied it, and as if to furnish the final argument to our debate, the snow on our right impinging against the cornice, well back upon which Hasler was standing, broke away, and down went a well-developed avalanche a couple of thousand feet over that much-tilted surface, and vanished in a sheer plunge that landed it perhaps three thousand feet below that. It was a suggestive and persuasive sight. Feeling sure that we had seen enough for one day, we beat a careful retreat. With even greater caution we descended the cliff in reversed order, and, with well-justified trepidation, returned over the treacherous arête to the snowy shoulder. Never did I feel less certain of the safe outcome of a climb, or breathe more freely on leaving snow, surely the worst condition in which it was ever my fortune to meet it. We glissaded down the lower greasy snows, made good time below our bivouac, and dusk found us with colossal appetites back at the lower camp and Ross's bannocks. And so, repulsed, we turned our back on the sullen mountain, yet harboring intentions of getting even with it on some future occasion.

None offered the following year, but, in 1903, my friend Parker, just back at Field from an unsuccessful try at Goodsir with the two Kaufmanns as guides, wrote me of their discomfiture by reason of a heavy snowfall encountered at about 10,000 feet, invited me to hurry out from the East and join him in another attempt, as soon as the melting of the snow would permit. No urging was necessary. I came with all haste, and at once we were under way, with Christian Kaufmann and Hasler as guides. We were encamped well into the Ice River valley by six o'clock of the day on which we left Leanchoil at noon; such was our