Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 1.djvu/77

50 progress, and yet that had to be negotiated if the Camp was to be reached before nightfall. It was a case of fun and work combined, and fun and work make a fine team when well mated. The ceremony of initiation into mountain work was here observed. First came the passage of an endless number of streams flowing from the Emerald glacier, thousands of feet higher. Pioneering the first section of the party was the Rev. Dr. Herdman, of Calgary, who proved himself to be a born mountaineer. Those who followed him as a vanguard had many lively experiences in negotiating the mad little rivers, for the log bridges had been swept away as the waters rapidly rose under the influence of the summer sun upon the glacier. Soon all traces of earlier trails were lost as search was made for suitable fords, until at last the pack ponies were requisitioned as bridges to carry the pilgrims over safely.

After the delta, the deluge, as a storm broke over us, giving the invaders of the hills their first, but not their last, nature bath. After the delta and the deluge, the initial bit of stiff up-grade climbing, of nearly a thousand feet, tested strength and breath. The rest cure soon became popular, and while the second wind was whistled for, entrancing glimpses were had of the lake valley, of the enclosing ranks of peaks, and, nearer at hand, of the massive buttresses of Mt. Vice-President, carrying on their granite slopes tumultuous floods of milk-white waters to the lake reservoir of emerald hue. A dense forest of spruce succeeded the stiff climb; wherein, for the time, the wonder-world of summits was obscured, but wherein another wonder-world of Nature unfolded itself in flower and fern and forest growth, of heath and heather. Painter's Brush and Yellow Columbine, of Anemones, Gailardias, and many another botanical specimen, making brilliant the floor of this Forest of Arden.