Up, Always Up.

Few stopped to eat the provisions they carried. They puffed and gulped, and orange peel, gleaming brilliantly against the white of the snow, littered the trail. Cameras clicked. Nearly everyone carried a camera, and the containers of spools mingled with the orange peel.

Up in the heights the bush thinned. Now the scene was like some Alaskan waste. The storm drove furiously, whipping against reddened faces.

Mush! mush! went the lifted feet. If one floundered from the path, there were drifts. Sticks, raided from trees, were a wonderful help.

And now rain mingled with the snow. Underfoot, mud oozed up, and white snow turned to slush.

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The snow thinned, and rain pelted down. The walkers were in bush again. The trees dripped moisture, and torrents swirled across the path.

It was a scene of majestic grandeur. As the road sharply descended, mighty mountains seemed to rise and loom overpoweringly. The faces of some seemed perpendicular, and from them, tons of water fell in wide ribbons to a canyon below. The river in the canyon was churned into furious flood, jamming its walls, and flinging great volumes of water against the greyish rocks. The waters below were of jade, except where they were churned to white. Great masses of green, streaked with white, that were flung over the rocks, looked like marble.

Oft-times a waterfall, from many hundreds of feet above, would bound and rebound against the rock wall before with a mighty crash, and, amid a mass of spray, it hit the river. One big waterfall fell against the side of the road, and its spray was shot with arrows of light.

The character of the bush had changed. It was more luxuriant, and from the fronds of ferns water dripped unceasingly. The green of the foliage was broken by reds and purples. Broken rock littered the track. It was hard walking, but no longer was there the laborious tax on the muscles of tramping through the snow.

And so to Otira, many laden with the red foliage of the pepper tree. Few escaped wet feet and soaked outer garments. But what of that? The experience was memorable.

There were new delights on the journey home as the train wound through the snow-capped hills, and the dying sun turned crests to burnished gold and the shadows merged in mauve hues against bush-clad lower slopes that changed from green to a wondrous blue.

But for those who had felt stinging snow on their cheeks, and had experienced the thrill of tramping alpine heights, there was a recollection that refused to be effaced.

The only cure for timidity is to plunge into some dreaded duty before the chill comes on.

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