Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/28

Rh outlined, cold, and grey, as in the morning, they appeared indistinct through a warm deep blue haze.

September 11th. Away this morning at 6.15 a.m., and halted at 1 p.m., after crossing the Riviére de Violon, or Fiddle river. It was a grand morning for mountain scenery. For the first three hours the trail continued at some distance east from the valley of the Athabaska, among wooded hills, now ascending, now descending, but on the whole with an upward slope, across creeks where the ground was invariably boggy, and over fallen timber where infinite patience was required on the part of horse and man. Suddenly it opened out on a lakelet, and right in front, a semicircle of five glorious mountains appeared; a high wooded hill and Roche à Perdrix on our left, Roche à Myette beyond, Roche Ronde in front, and a mountain above Lac Brulé on our right. For half a mile down from their summits, no tree, shrub or plant covered the nakedness of the three that the old trappers had thought worthy of names; a clothing of vegetation would have marred their massive grandeur. . ..

The road now descended rapidly to the valley of the Athabaska. As it wound from point to point among the tall dark green spruces, the soft blue of the mountains gleamed through everywhere, and when the woods parted the mighty column of Roche à Perdrix towered a mile above our heads, scuds of cloud kissing its snowy summit, and each plication and angle of the different strata up its giant sides boldly and clearly revealed. We were entering the magnificent jasper portals of the Rocky mountains by a quiet path winding between groves of trees and rich lawns like an English gentleman's park.

Crossing a brook divided into half a dozen brooklets by willows, the country opened a little, and the base and inner side of Roche à Perdrix were revealed, but