Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/59

Rh Time required: This expedition involves several nights out. Unless skilled in mountaineering, a guide is necessary.

Battle Creek—Name: Local, owing to a fight between a prospector and a grizzly bear.

Location: Tributary to Incomappleux River (Fish Creek) from the east. Its source is in Battle Glaciers.

Battle Spring—Name: In relation to Battle Creek.

Location: On the east side of Incomappleux River, about a mile south of Battle Creek. This is a curious spring of unusual size—about 20 feet across—with a bottom of disintegrated granite which the action of the water keeps boiling up, presenting a milky appearance.

Bear Creek—Name: Local, owing to the prevalence of bears in its valley-.

Altitude: 2.900—7,000 feet.

Location: From sources in Baloo and Bruin's Passes, Bear Creek flows Jiorth-easterly along the south base of the Hermit Range with Mts. Ursus Minor and Grizzly of that Range on the north, and Mt. Cheops on the south. It then flows through Rogers Pass between Mts. Macdonald and Tupper, and joins Beaver River about one mile south-east of Bear Creek Station on the railway. This part of the stream is through a narrow defile, rugged and awe-inspiring in the extreme. On the south Mt. Macdonald, riven by great scaurs banked with snow, rises a full mile above the railway track. On the northern or Tupper side, the railway passes along a shelf carved from the excessively steep slopes. Here for six miles consecutive snowsheds protect the line from avalanches which may descend from either mountain. Those from Mt. Macdonald are by far the most destructive, crossing the stream and rebounding up the steep sides of Mt. Tupper for a considerable distance.

Above Rogers Pass, Bear Creek Valley widens out in a wild and interesting landscape. Great precipices descend sheer from Mt. Cheops and enormous masses of naturally quarried stone lie at its base; darkly wooded buttresses extend from the mountains to the north, silver cascades slip from great heights to the valley below. In the floor of the valley itself stand prodigious islands of rock, whole brotherhoods of spruce growing out of the scant soil on their summits. Around their bases are caves once bear-dens, but since the advent of the tourist the home of the hoary marmot, whose sudden shrill resounding whistle with its uncanny human note is enough to make one's hair stand on end. Near the head of the valley are twin cataracts, smaller but resembling in grandeur the more celebrated Twin Falls of the Yoho valley.

Route: A pony-trail leads from Rogers Pass tip Bear Creek and over Baloo Pass to the Cougar Valley.

Bear Creek Station—Name: By C.P.R. Company, with reference to Bear Creek.

Altitude: 3,673 feet, rail level.

Location: The station is about one mile westerly from the eastern entrance to Rogers Pass, and the same distance north-westerly from the junction of Bear Creek and Beaver river.

Bear Falls—Name: By Howard Douglas, Commissioner of Dominion parks.