Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/86

72 on the same level and in perfect alignment although separated by the deeply cut notch of Glacier Circle (5,700 ft.)

Location: South of Mt. Sir Donald and east of the Asulkan Valley, it lies directly along the great eastern escarpment of the Selkirks.

First Ascent: By W. S. Green and the Rev. H. Swanzy in 1888.

Area: About 10 square miles. The névé is a good example of a local ice-cap glacier. It is drained on the north by the Illecillewaet Glacier, and on the south-west by Geikie Glacier, these being the two principal outflows, although the névé also overflows to the Asulkan Valley on the Avest and to Glacier Circle on the south.

The Illecillewaet Glacier is in easy proximity to Glacier House, a walk of about forty-five minutes. An interesting and beautiful and comprehensive near view of the entire glacier is obtained from a point on the trail leading to Cascade Summer House and Avalanche Crest, just at the corner where the trail turns sharply to ascend the steep mountain-side. The ice-fall from this point shows like a great tongue lying wide-spread on its rock-bed. scored in every direction by a maze of crevasses sweeping outwards from the centre The soft undulating névé above, and the crinkled, corrugated glacier below, confined between parallel rock-ribs, flecked and spotted by layers of snow show through the nearer forest as in a land of magic which the Selkirks truly arc. Glacier Crest is another point from which the ice-fall is seen in minute detail.

From the crest of the neve to the base of the tongue, the fall is 3,600 ft. Seen from the station platform the great ice-walls rise steeply to the skyline, and thousands of people yearly view the wonderful sight from the daily trains stopping at Glacier. But to appreciate fully the magnificence of the spectacle it is necessary to study it; to see it under different aspects, in light, in shadow with the sun sparkling on its many ice-points, or covered by a soft mantle of fresh snow; to go up among its crevasses, to stand beside its seracs. to follow its snow-slopes to the sky-line and there gaze upon the dwarfed landscape below. Unless one is an expert mountaineer, it is not safe to go on the glacier or to travel across its névé without a Swiss guide. A day spent in such wandering will well repay those looking for pleasure and healthful exertion. The seracs themselves are worth the excursion.

Route: From the hotel a good trail leads to the bare moraine below the ice-tongue, through beautiful woods of spruce, cedar, hemlock, with underwoods of huckleberry bushes, alder, white-flowered rhododendrons, devil's club and many a delicate low-growing .shrub. Never far from the rushing Illecillewaet torrent, the path lies broad and well-beaten, and no guide is required to the foot of the ice.

Distance: 2 miles.

There are many superb views of surrounding mountains through openings in the forest as the trail proceeds Among the boulders of the terminal moraine are a number of rocks marked with red paint measuring the yearly retreat of the ice-forefront. Close and careful observations of this glacier's movements have been carried on for many years by the Messrs. Vaux and Miss Vaux. of Philadelpliia. (See under "Glaciers of the Selkirks").