Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/144

128 a Scottish "free-trader" who once lived in the neighbourhood and gathered furs for barter with the big Fur Companies.

Mt. Hammond received its present name in honour of a Mr. Hammond, of Toronto. It is doubtless the high mountain named Mt. Nelson by Thompson the first white man to see it. The altitude by aneroid barometer is given as 12,125 feet. From the ridge above Paradise Mine, it is seen an isolated mountain with precipitous sides. a small hanging glacier, and a split summit.

First ascent: By C. D. Ellis a rancher in the hills, in September, 1910. The first attempt was made by Professor H. C. Parker, of New York, in 1909. Mr. E. W. Harnden. of Boston, climbed with Ellis to an altitude of 11,000 feet when they discovered they had taken a wrong route. Not being in proper climbing fettle, Mr. Harnden reluctantly relinquished the virgin summit to his companion. An account of the climb, which was made from a camp at Paradise Mine, appeared in "The Mountaineer"

(Seattle) November, 1910. No actual "times" are given. From this point (11,000) we may follow Mr. Harnden's account as published:

"Taking a course a little west of north, Ellis continued until he found himself overlooking Boulder Creek (a tributary of Horse Thief Creek) and immediately under the crown of the summit at an elevation of 12,000 feet. Here a bastion of hard limestone blocked the ascent. Following east and south for some 50 feet, he came to a fissure which proved impossible on account of ice and water and a huge wedged-in rock; then to a dry fissure impossible for its smoothness; and finally to one of rotten rock but with footholds and hand holds, by which he gained the top about the middle of the afternoon, where he built a cairn and deposited his record." The party left camp early in the morning and returned late at night. It was a difficult and dangerous climb and may be counted the inauguration of the sport in the Windermere region where Swiss guides will doubtless be stationed ere long.

The double summit of Mt. Hammond, of which the southern is the highest by a few feet, is owing to disintegration and the whole crown would have fallen away long ago but for the solid limestone bastion mentioned. The crown is covered with fragments of "green lime shale tinged with red iron stain."

Horse Thief Creek: Its name is suggestive of the lawless days before the coming of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, those Red Riders that established British law and order in the West. If this unbeautiful name is to remain, we wish it were in the Indian synonym. Horse Thief Creek flows north of Toby Creek and be tween them is that group of glacier-bearing mountains mostly un named of which Mt. Hammond is one. The Creek rises far back in the mountains in Starbird Glacier named for its discoverer. This glacier, which has an interesting medial moraine, offers attraction in glacier research to the geologist. About midway up the valley McDonald Creek flows from its source in McDonald Glacier at 7,500 of altitude where are silver mines to which a waggon-road runs. Hard by stands Mt. Farnham, a giant of some possible 12.000 feet. The glacier joins the Tilbury Glacier at the head of the Little North Fork of Toby Creek. Here is exercise on both ice and rock for those seeking new peaks and passes to conquer. The col itself is said to