Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/44

218 Where Lefroy and Victoria Glaciers meet we found the surface badly broken, necessitating rather cautious movement and obliging us in places to jump over partially concealed crevasses. Here we paused to take in the view. We were at the head of another valley, wilder and more interesting than Paradise. The Mitre and Lefroy looked down on us, as their other sides did on Paradise Valley. Victoria formed the centre of the circle, its huge mass of snow and ice overhanging high rocky walls suggesting something familiar. Turning, the eye swept down the valley of ice and there below us, a pure gem in a perfect setting, appeared a small lake of liquid blue. "Lake Louise!" someone exclaimed; and, like a flash, I then recalled gazing through powerful binoculars towards Lefroy and Victoria from the Chalet by the lake, wondering at the time if I would have the good fortune to stand where we now stood. The Chalet was plainly visible, and beyond we could see Laggan, the railroad and other signs of prosaic existence.

Awakened from a reverie by the warning that we must make Abbot Pass before the sun should loosen the dangerous snow masses by its piercing rays, we reluctantly turned, and taking our way around the bulwark of Lefroy, looked up the Victoria Glacier to Abbot Pass. The precipitious walls of Lefroy and Victoria on either side force snow into this narrow gap.

A clear blue canopy of sky brought out the vivid whiteness of the pass, and the incline of the vision following the upward slope belittled the intervening distance and made the pass seem almost insignificant. Why was it called the "Death Trap"? Why was it dangerous? Why the warning to take a long breath and no halt? The answers came as we pushed upward, the pass apparently receding as we advanced and yet near enough to lure us on. As we zigzagged up, huge masses of snow lay in loosely piled heaps, rising high above us, almost forbidding a whisper lest it start an avalanche; and the sun,