Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/162

Rh Mts. Lookout, Green, Sir Donald, Uto, Eagle, Cougar, and below the séracs of the glacier and many water- falls. Then we tramped up to the crest of the névé, about 4200 feet above Glacier House, and the Illecillewaet valley was suddenly shut out. Instead, a new panorama, south and west, opened up to our eyes: Mts. Bonney, Fox, Donkin, Selwyn, Purity, Dawson, Fish creek. Glacier circle, and many large white snowfields. We kept to the left of the névé, and had no difficulties with crevasses, but our steps were in basins, formed by the winds whirling the snows around. Then Mt. Macoun rose into view. But the problem was, how to get our feet on the mountain? It was surrounded by a high escarpment of snow, with spaces between the vertical banks and the green ice which clung to the mountain sides. Fortunately, scouting about, we found a tongue running out, in a circuitous manner, which joined another tongue, a little lower in height. It was a very narrow peninsula to traverse, and at the end of it we had to step carefully, but the guide jumped from one strip to the other, plunging his ice-axe into the snow, and I followed; thus we reached the side of the mountain in safety.

Next came a difficulty which I have never seen, before or since, in any mountain range: a crack, three to six feet wide, separated the shoulder we were on from the main mass and the walls looked perpendicular. This sharp cut into the mountain may have been limited, but where we stood, because of the rough boulders, there was no way of getting past, and I imagined for some moments that our climb was completely blocked. But Feuz lighted his pipe and studied the walls carefully. Finally he discerned two small ledges, opposite one another, so he descended several feet, leaped over the chasm and rested his ice-axe in a rift between the rocks. Then he cleverly scaled the face of the wall to where a large stone stood, round