Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE 23 twenty-four switch-backs up the next hill. In the afternoon we went up over this zig-zag trail, and after riding for some time over some high Alplands came to a delightful camping site on Crescent Lake Pass. It was there that Curlie came back from his climb of a ridge and told us that the mountain had receded behind four more ranges; and from that time on it kept playing a game with us. At last, after twelve days, we reached a point from which it was impossible to take the horses any further. So we turned them Photo by Mary L. Jobe IN SIGHT OF THE BIG MOUNTAINS loose to range at will over about 250 acres of high Alps, packed the necessaries on our backs and were off on the last stage of our pur- suit of the big mountain. Three times already he had receded behind other ranges, but with five days ' grub we expected to run him to ground that very night. That first day ' s back-packing none of us will soon forget! It began with coming about 1,000 feet down a waterfall. Then we waded the Clearwater, climbed for about six hours the opposite ridge without water; were attacked by a bear; finally made the top; descended a rock slide, and made the last ridge preparatory to slipping down onto the glacier into camp. But there a dread- ful disappointment awaited us. The cliffs fell away sheer to the valley; a British Columbia valley, a deep gash between sides covered densely with forest and shin-tangle and devil ' s club.

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22 HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE clothes, baking and cooking pork and beans in accordance with the rigorous camp etiquette which compels one, when one waits over two days, to boil a pot of pork and beans. The last night was wonderful. Both Robson and Whitehorn had been under cloud all day, but towards night the clouds lifted and a radiant moon came sailing over the sky, touching with silver their topmost peaks and gleaming on their high snow-fields. The next day we moved over to Coleman Creek, where we lay in wait to rob an outgoing party of another packer and another horse. In time they came and delivered up to us Bert Wilkins and Nigger. It was then that our trip proper began. For several days we followed trails made by Curlie in previous years up the Big Smoky, then over Bess Pass and Shoulder down into a beautiful valley of huge spruces and no underbrush. On all sides rose peaks, many even unnamed, all presenting a pleasant summer ' s work for the skilled climber. If we had known what we were coming to later, we should have lingered longer in that broad valley of no underbrush. For ahead of us over Jack Pine Pass Curlie forced a zig-zag trail up the mountain side through heart- breaking shin-tangle that closed in around one ' s feet and beat one back. But there is an end to all things, and at the top on Jones ' Pass we had our reward. There, from our high camp, we had such a view of blue haze-cradled mountains stretching away beyond the flowers at our feet as McWhirter has given us in June in the Austrian Tyrol. After lunch Miss Jobe and Curlie climbed a ridge to plan the course for the morrow. Our tinned stuff was already getting low, so that we all rejoiced when they returned with a goat which Miss Jobe had shot. For some time after that, goat mulligan was the order of the day. The next day we made camp in Avalanche Pass in the muskeg. From a neighboring ridge Curlie had seen that he must go ahead and cut a trail before he could take his horses up. So, early the next morning, he and Bert started off with a biscuit each, and we heard the sound of their chopping dying away gradually up the hill. Now, this was August 13, the fifth anniversary of the day when Curlie and Rev. G. B. Kinney had climbed Mt. Robson, so Miss Jobe and I spent the day preparing a banquet to be tendered to him on their return. It was a wonderful banquet and most successful. There were, I think, four courses, of which the staple was goat mulligan. But the piece de resistance was a wonderful combination of cake and pie baked in the frying-pan. Suffice it to say that at the end, even the knowledge that there were goats to be seen on a nearby ridge failed to arouse us to the needed effort of going to look at them. In the morning we moved up over the trail cut by the men and down onto a branch of the Fraser Smoky. Here the woods were so dense that there was scarcely room to put up the tents, but yet there were moose trails so deep that we sank in them nearly up to our knees. There we lay over a morning while the men cut

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24 HAVERGAL COLLEGE MAGAZINE There was nothing to be done but to camp, keeping a big fire all night for warmth. The next morning we struggled down the shoulder, making the Big Salmon for lunch. This unexpected day ' s march put us on rations, so that for lunch we each had a big flapjack, but it was surprising how fit that made us for the remaining six and one- half hours that still lay before us. We crossed two large tribu- taries later in the afternoon, one on a log jam and the other on a log felled by Curlie. One more small ridge and we were in the Big Mountain valley, down which a wide spray-covered torrent rushes. We were just going on up to the glacier when, looking over our shoulders, we saw storm clouds closing in the valley. At the same moment Curlie saw a small space in which a tent could be put up. Both men dashed to the work, and just as we pressed inside the storm broke. Safe and dry we listened to the ava- lanches hurled from the Big Mountain. There was nothing friendly in his greeting to those who had dared to invade his realms after years of uninterrupted sway. When the storm was over we went outside to take in our sur- roundings. Clouds covered both peaks far down the sides, and all we saw were battlements of glaciers extending all along the front. Rain fell at night and most of the next morning, so that climbing was out of the question for that day. The next morning it was still threatening, but all felt that, as grub was getting short, another day must not be lost. So, at 6, Curlie, Miss Jobe and Bert Wilkins started off. Left alone below, I sat and waited. Rain fell in torrents but they did not come back. Gradually clouds crept down to the very base of the mountain, but still they did not return. Three kettles of water had boiled away before I heard shouts, and rushing out saw them just round- ing the point, soaked to the skin but still cheerful. They had been obliged to turn back by a blizzard on the snow-field before the peak began. Besides their very welcome selves they brought back six ptarmigan. Ptarmigan mulligan soon revived us all, and next morning, regretfully, we started homeward. The great dis- appointment lay in the fact that if they had had enough food to wait until fine weather, they felt sure they could make the ascent. That return journey was a very melancholy one. The bushes were dripping and in five minutes we were soaked, and remained so all day. By 6 o ' clock we had made Providence Pass, so named because there Curlie shot a caribou. By this time the continued wet had brought back Bert ' s rheumatism, and as I wasn ' t going to climb, it was decided that Bert and I should return to Last Cayuse camp, while Curlie and Miss Jobe went back with our blessing to try their luck on the Big Mountain once more. In the morning we went our diverse ways sadly and anxiously, with Curlie ' s words ringing in our ears, We ' ll be back on the fourth day, sure. That day Bert and I went down the side, crossed the river on a log jam and had a lunch on the other side of broiled fool-hen, shot en route, without salt or bread or