Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/166

282 wider than six inches, the precipices over which they hung suspended by a single rope were seldom less than 3,000 feet, and the general air of terror which enwrapt the whole performance almost robbed me of sleep on the night before my venture on the same mountain.

The next morning at seven o'clock a ropefull of us were lined up before the President's tent. Nine in all, we started off in charge of our guide without waiting for the sixteen others who were to make the ascent that morning. For the first half hour we tramped up a steep ravine. This seemed easy, though it was not long before it began to shorten our breath; the guide was ready for this, however, and made us sit down for a rest long before any of us would have considered it necessary. Once beyond the ravine and out on the rocks we began to do some real climbing. The easiest going was up the solid rock ledges; the most troublesome was over the great slides of shale, which, even when taken in zig-zags, gave at every step. The greatest care was necessary in placing the foot so as not only to assure your own advance, but to safeguard from sliding fragments the brains of the following climbers. We kept on over rock and snow, for we had now reached the snow-line, till we arrived at the base of a sort of tower of rock with a narrow ledge running round it. Here our guide halted and began roping. There were, as I have said, nine in our party, and after half a dozen loops had been made in the rope and slipped over the shoulders of as many people, it was seen that at least two would be left out in the cold. Some instinct seemed to tell me that I would be one of these heroes. Sure enough, it was to me that he first turned with a cheerful "I know that you won't mind going unroped." "N-no—it's not very dangerous, is it?" He reassured me and the other hero in such ambiguous terms that we followed the party with anything but heroic feelings. From the base of the tower we got into a snow-filled crevice easily negotiated