Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/22

202 shadows were creeping over Paradise Valley, and the warm glow and pleasant crackle of the camp fire were making many merry hearts merrier.

The third attempt of Pinnacle Mountain was made on the 22nd of August last by Dr. J. W. A. Hickson, of McGill College, Montreal. The account of it is given in his own words:

"I started in the afternoon of August 21st from Lake Louise with Peter Kaufman and Edouard Feuz, Jr., and camped one night on the site of the Canadian Alpine Club camp in 1907. We had camped here a week before, but had been driven back from our proposed attempt on Pinnacle by heavy rain and snow. When we were taking supper, in full view of the mountain, it seemed to me that the guides were by no means so hopeful of attaining the summit as they had been previously. Feuz even remarked in no genuinely joking tone: 'Perhaps we won't get to the top.' Needle-like in appearance, its summit covered with fresh snow looked cold and forbidding, and very diminutive alongside of the massive Temple.

"We set out next morning about 5 o'clock, in fine weather. After following the stream which flowed past the camp, we ascended a grassy slope and over some boulders along the left shoulder of the mountain. In about three hours we reached the snow, which was fresh and powdery, and the rope was brought into requisition. Proceeding carefully up the snow-slope, we crossed to the right and following the ridge, which one of the guides had traversed some weeks before, had some good rock climbing. In some place the foot-holds were rendered easier by the hard snow, particularly on a narrow ledge skirting the right shoulder of the mountain near the top; but elsewhere the rocks were unpleasantly slippery through melting snow. We had reached a ledge within what seemed to be about 300 feet below the summit, when further advance was stopped by a precipitous wall