Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/27

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On the extreme west of the Rocky Mountains system, hard by the waters of the North Pacific, is a mountain range little known beyond its own horizon. Its highest peaks do not compare in altitude with the giants of the Selkirks and Rockies, rising above valleys already at a considerable elevation, but they have the same alpine features of rock and glacier and snow, while their ascent involves climbing almost from the level of the sea. Moreover, they possess an added feature of beauty impossible to the ranges lying further east, their seaward slopes being indented with numerous fiords which find their way often into the very heart of the range.

The peak of greatest height is Mt. Garibaldi—known locally as "Old Baldi"—which stands at the head of Howe Sound, some thirty miles in from the Gulf of Georgia. Every dweller in the lovely Valley of the Squamish, which this mountain overlooks, is as proud of him as he is proud of his country; yet, except to these good people, he is all but a myth. Years ago a party attempted the ascent, but failed; and it looked, as time went on, as if Old Baldi were to crumble away in peace. But in that party were some who were "baffled to fight better," and this is why one stormy night, early in August, 1907, an adventurous group found themselves about a roaring fire in an old log house in the Squamish Valley, forty miles by water from Vancouver.

At six o'clock the next morning under a clear sky, we set out for the coveted summit, following the Tsee-Ki whose source is in Garibaldi's glaciers. At first the travelling was easy, for the rise was gradual and the