Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/181

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It was in October of 1904, about the twenty-first, I left Field at eight o'clock in the morning, for a solitary stroll to the fossil bed on Mt. Stephen. A dense cold fog filled the valley, and promised good opportunities for cloud pictures later in the day. So, besides my lunch, prospector's pick and chisels, I took two cameras, a tripod, plates and holders. For an hour the trail to the fossil bed was followed; now going through the fragrant groves of spruce and fir over their thick carpets of moss, now crossing the noisy, foaming stream on a rustic bridge, but ever up, and always plunging through the heavy clouds of mist. As timber limit was neared, the clouds became broken with many a rift; and then, finally, I emerged above them into the glorious sunshine of a serene day. At my feet lay a sea of hurrying clouds, dazzling white in the brilliant sunshine of that October morning. Its massive swirling billows broke in silence on a soundless shore, and swept in gentle surges over the fossil bed, where once rolled the mighty ocean. Field with its tourists and its noisy, puffing traffic, was no more; it lay fathoms deep in that fleecy, fluffy flood.

On the right, across a few miles of clouds, Mt. Field arose abruptly, its snows glistening pure and white in the sun, with Mt. Wapta just peeping over its broad shoulders. Immediately opposite, Mt. Burgess reared its rugged crest. Between lay that most beautiful of passes. Burgess pass. This trinity of gems seemed an island in the midst of a matrix of down. Across another inlet of this sea of clouds, the ivory peaks of the