Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/201

134 side break into bloom with exquisite odorous flowers, as if a manntle had been flung about the shoulders of the slopes, while at each step one had perforce to crush them under foot, so closely clustered did they grow among their smooth, spear-like shoots.

To the true lover of nature there is no greater pleasure than to stand where the snow-crowned mountains tower up to heaven, where the thin blue tint of the sky is stretched out over stony bastions, rising above the tall green conifers, and the alpine streams, ice-born in the heart of the sparkling glaciers, form a silvery network enmeshing myriads of bright-hued blossoms which bud and blow at the bidding of the summer sun. Such is the Garden of Nature where the mountain wildflowers of Canada grow

"'Twixt the green and the azure sphere."

When you leave the Châlet Hotel at Lake Louise to follow the trail which leads into the Valley of the Ten Peaks, you begin the long slow ascent that ends on the shoulder of Mt. Temple, from whence you obtain an exquisite view of Moraine lake. Here you enter the wonderful flower-fields of the valley, where blossoms of every hue sweep in great waves of color from "tree-line" down into the depths, 3000 feet below. Here the Indian Paint-brushes (Castilleia septentrionalis) and Painted-cups (Castilleia miniata) are to be found in all their glory, scarlet, red, pink, white, yellow and orange they abound on every hand. Mingled with them grow golden-silvery Hairy Hawkweeds (Hieracium Scouleri), Harebells (Campanula rotundifolia), Phacelias (Phacelia sericea), cherry-tipped Eriogonums (Eriogonum umbellatum), blue-eyed Speedwells (Veronica alpina) and a dozen different species of Vetch, Saxifrage and Rock-cress.

An alpine meadow is a spot of supreme beauty, where the Wild Clematis (Clematis Columbiana) and Macoun's Gentians (Gentiana Macounii) are blue as