Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/17

Rh The diamond-hitch which, they say, had its origin in Mexico over a century ago, is an essential quantity in a packer's education. In the early days of outfitting, as much as $100 has been paid to learn the trick. Certainly necessity was its mother. It is a wonder the Arabs never contrived some such occult process instead of packing the camels by winding thongs about the body and over the pack, at the journey's end cutting all loose. The diamond-hitch is a combination of loops and turns and pulls of the rope which fastens the pack to the saddle, and is so constructed as to hold it firmly and comfortably in place through the day's march and, by a dexterous turn or two of the packer's knowing fingers, to loosen and set free the pack at night. Under the diamond-shaped figure made by the rope when completed, nothing can dislodge the pack. Bronchos have rolled down precipices or have fallen inversely into deep torrents, emerging with the pack precisely in its place and resuming a broncho's wonted philosophic complacence. In his famous and delightful "Travels with a Donkey," Stevenson, searching for health in the mountains of Cevennes, had been spared much trouble and chagrin, had he known this western trick, and there would have been no complaint about holding his pack upon a pack-saddle "against a gale out of the freezing north." If only, as I said, that beloved vagabond fighting insidious and determined death, had been ordered west instead of south. Then we still had had his brave and beautiful essay "Ordered South," but with a different title.

Now that the Alpine Club has given such an impetus to mountaineering in Canada, the Selkirk Mountains will receive increasing attention; and that unmeasured and practically unknown field which borders the Windermere country, where glaciers and excellent waggon-roads almost meet, promises unrivalled sport for the climber whose holidays are short, to whom easy access is a grateful feature. It is through these hard working Canadians that mountaineering may become a national sport, that is, a sport for the many and not for the few only. The utilitarian uses of mountains are obvious; without them there is no growing of wheat on the prairie. Their aesthetic and ethical uses are obvious also—to those who climb them or tarry in their recesses. As the sea to the swimmer so is the mountain to the climber, and a passion for high altitudes has indubitably a moral quality. The day has gone by when ridicule was the climber's portion, albeit it never greatly disturbed him. His apologetic was to go on climbing. To be sure, in the Swiss Alps the loss of life has been enormous, notably after the revival of mountaineering in the late seventies, accounted almost wholly to foolhardiness and guideless climbing. In the Rocky Mountains it has not been so. For, in the twenty-five years of climbing, only three tragedies have occurred, one being in the Selkirks. With intelligence and care and the employment of capable and trusty guides, a novice is as safe on glacier or cliff as on our congested city streets.

Much has been written about the advantages and the joys of mountaineering, but the great inducement is, more than all other inducements, the unimaginable visions that unfold before the climber as he climbs. No man (and the word includes woman) can climb above these forests and over these glaciers, measuring these peaks with their own footsteps, without becoming thrall to the snowy Selkirks. ELIZABETH PARKER.