II.

The Yoho Expedition.

At 3 o'clock on August 9 the Yoho party march off along Lake Wapta and turn up into the Sherbrooke Valley. For the first camp, Clausen Otto, the outfitter, takes up horses, though the blazed trail is terribly rough, no vestige of a path being made through the woods. Wild berries are abundant—blueberries and large huckleberries—and we grab them in handfuls as we scramble through and over the timber. As we mount the slopes, thunder begins to rumble over the hills and suddenly a storm bursts on us. We find Otto has begun to unpack the horses, which are frightened at the lightning. Some one rushes at us and snatches our ice-axes, which are declared to be 'most dangerous.' He proceeds to hide them. And then the ladies are placed 'in shelter' under the largest tree. I find in the morning seven axes stuck into this tree just above the ladies' 'sheltered heads.' I feel a strong temptation page break

Twin Falls, yoho Valley.

B. Harman, Photo.

Scan Elctric Engracing Co., Ltd.

page 11 to give a professorial lecture on lightning and conductors—but refrain. The 'packers' and 'boys' set to work, and with incredible rapidity have tents pitched, fires lighted, 'brush' and firewood cut, and a meal ready. It was a fine lesson in method and woodmanship. In half an hour the storm was over and we were warm, comfortable and feeding.

Miss Vaux—my Quaker friend of twelve years ago—has joined our party, so, with Mrs. Solly and her sister and Mrs. Spence we have four ladies and twenty-eight men—a proportion the ladies fully appreciate. Next morning four of the more active start for Mount Burgess, while the rest of us move camp across the ridge into the Yoho.

The ponies are sent back to Hector, and Otto has instructions to bring up supplies to the highest part of the Yoho Valley, which we are to reach on Wednesday evening. So for two days everything has to be carried. The 'boys'—all volunteers from the Club—are nobly loaded. One or two carry packs of 60 to 70 lb.; two real boys of nineteen carry 50 lb. apiece. I feel quite ashamed of my light ruck-sack, but soon find that the addition of a lady's camera and of a few other trifles makes up a very reasonable load for a hot day. The President sends us on ahead while the camp is still packing, so I renew my old experience of following a 'blazed' trail. It wants a pretty sharp look-out to spot the slight 'bend over' in the grass and scrub where men have walked, and to see the white notch on the trees every sixty to a hundred yards as the trail twists and turns through the forest. Once above the tree-line one can steer for peak or pass easily enough, and there was no difficulty in ascending the Niles Pass, where we were to wait for the President. It was a hot grind up quite easy slopes and slabs by the west side of Mount Niles. At the top of the pass we looked down a fine snowfield on to the great Daly Glacier. North of us rose Mount Balfour, which I had tried to bag in 1897. As we sat on the col, munching our luncheon and 'cooling off,' we were hardly aware of the black clouds racing up from the south. Within ten minutes the blizzard was searching our bones and the hail cutting our faces as we cowered together under what protection we could find. Then the rear guard came up with the President, who pointed out the position for our second camp, high on the slopes of the Yoho Valley by the ice-fall of the Daly Glacier. Off we started, glissading down the snow, and first one and then another put their feet through and skipped out laughing. With old-world caution two of us roped on to the ladies—but of course we didn't hit upon a crevasse. The President added a touch of grimness to the page 12 comedy by lining us up when we reached the ice and calling the roll. 'Twenty-eight. All aboard!' And Harmon stepped from the rank and photographed the regiment as we moved off in file. Diagonally across the great ice-field the line advanced at the 'double,' and reached the rocks just at the right-hand of the blue ice-fall. The narrow ledges were trying to the overladen 'boys'; it was no easy thing to balance on them, and the hand-holds were all rotten. At the foot of the rocks we pitched our camp and were soon busy levelling the soil for our tents. Before we were through, the storm circled round upon us again, and all the packs had to be thrust into one tent. As the night came on it was still wet and cold and the 'boys,' most of whom preferred to sleep in the open on fine nights, crowded into the men's tent. Then the President entered and said the ladies were going to make room for two of us in their tent—and Solly and I were the selected victims. We took our sleeping bags across, stumbling in the dark through a muddy stream. The ladies said they would require twenty minutes to go to bed, and then they would 'ring' for us by beating on a tin frying pan. I set up a lantern for them with a cardie guaranteed to fall out in forty minutes, and then Solly and I sat over the fire drying our lower halves and getting soaked above. The men had long turned in and their lights were out; but from the illuminated ladies' tent peals of laughter spread into the night and echoed from the cliffs above. Half an hour went by and the laughter waxed shriller. Three-quarters of an hour—and we two grimly watched the moving shadows silhouetted on the canvas. Then sudden darkness fell—the candle had gone—and there was silence for a space. Then a light appeared again under the canvas, and the laughter rippled out again. Ten minutes more and we determined to go over and expostulate. So Solly and I approached. And then the laughter was accompanied by a tocsin on the frying-pan. They were in bed. I opened the flap and spoke a word and addressed them by name. And silence fell on the camp.

I pass over the agonies of the night. As I have said, the ground was slanting and I had to lie across the slope at the mercy of the feet of the sleeping four. Towards morning I found both legs pushed through the tent and my feet freezing. Not often have I got up gladly with the morning sun; but next morning did look glorious, and without wishing to flatter the mountain tops unduly, I think there was a little heavenly alchemy in the air outside.

It was the anniversary of our attempt on Mount Balfour twelve years ago. We file off under the President's eye at 7.30. page 13 For an hour and a half we carry our sacks, most of the 'boys' heavily laden. Then we reach the edge of the long Balfour snow-field, and we stack our packs on the last rocks. We have a sip of water and a prune by way of second breakfast, and then rope up in a 'four,' a 'five,' and a 'three,' to suit our ropes of 80, 100, and 60 feet. The snow rises gradually and we make good progress, Godfried Feuz leads with Mrs. Spence, J. I). Patterson and myself on first rope. Solly's party is second, and three boys make the third. When we at last reach the Bergschrund a slight detour of forty yards brings us to a practical bridge of good snow, small but sufficient for our wants. The slope above is fairly steep to the ridge, along which we proceed partly on rock and partly on snow until we reach the final summit in four hours and a quarter from the camp. The last half-hour we walked in mist, but the sun soon broke through and we enjoyed fine dissolving views as the cloud cleared first on one side and then on another. Balfour is an easy climb; indeed, it is rather a fine walk than a climb—once you are on it. Our difficulty twelve years ago was that we never got on it. It looked very tempting to go down one of the two sharp rock aretes to the north, one of them almost pointing to our next camp. But our packs had to be recovered. Twenty feet down the north-east face we found a place to sit on out of the wind, and here we took our luncheon and looked down on Lake Turquoise, Lake Margaret and Hector Lake—the scene of our old camp in the Bow Valley. We should have tried Balfour from there, and not from our higher camp at the Upper Bow Lake. It is easy to be wise when one is on the top.

We took a short cut to the snow-bridge over the Bergschrund. Thence we followed our steps over the long snow-field, revelling in the glorious sea of mountains before us. Such a confusion of peaks seemed piled together that it required some care to pick out the several ranges we knew so well—the sentinels and lines that keep watch over Lake O'Hara. All too soon the rocks were reached, and we strapped on our packs reluctantly.

Then the guides led us a long traverse to the north, under the Trolltinder—a western spur of Mount Balfour—until we were stopped by steep cliffs. We had to circle back some distance along the edge until we struck a steep couloir which was half filled with hard snow. Godfried led down, followed by Mrs. Spence and myself. Where the snow had melted the couloir was full of loose stones. It was difficult to keep close together. A slide of shale and stones accompanied our movements, but nothing serious happened until we were two-thirds of the way down. Then a cry from above and I saw a huge page 14 boulder starting down the gulley. Godfried made a run for it, I gave a hurried look round: it was impossible for us to get out of the gulley in time. So I stood on the right side of the narrow 'shoot,' while Mrs. Spence, a few feet below me, clung to the left wall. I watched the boulder strike twice and come spinning through the air straight at me. I sprang across the gulley, not looking, I fear, exactly where my feet would strike, but watching the boulder fly by about two feet from my head. The boulder had, of course, set a shower of satellites in motion, and whether one struck me or whether my foothold gave way I don't know, but in an instant I was carrying Mrs. Spence down the gulley, and we went down rolling over together in an involuntary but firm embrace. Luckily my side came against the rock wall, and the pressure being distributed over a large area acted as a brake without breaking any bones. Next moment we had stopped and for the first instant were aware only of a pair of eyes close to our own with large notes of interrogation in them. 'Are you hurt?' was what the other eyes said. 'If so, I'm so sorry, for I'm all right.' And then we picked ourselves up, to the relief of our friends above, and nothing was found broken. We were not sorry to escape from 'Boulder Gulley.'

When we reached tree-line a sharp eye detected the faint blue patch in the opposite forest denoting the location of the third camp. We plunged down through the wood, now, as ever, my idea of purgatory. And when we emerged, out of wind and out of temper, near the foot of the Wapta Glacier, we found a formidable stream before us. After many attempts at finding a stone bridge, most of the party ascended and crossed the glacier; one of the boys and I took off our stockings and waded the two streams. It was pretty hard to stand against the rush, but the ice-cold water was delicious. We got pretty wet, but soon dried ourselves by the camp fire, I wish one could do this sort of thing with impunity in England! Our camp that night, in the thick forest near the Twin Falls, was one of the most beautiful of our experiences. Most of us slept in the open.

A hot, lazy day followed. Horses to carry our packs again, and no particular peak or pass to bag. So we sat under the Twin Falls, which it seems I was the first to describe in the Alpine Journal in my account of the view from Mount Gordon. When we reached camp No. 4 in Waterfall Valley in the early afternoon, we sat in the shade and told stories, and even played 'Who knows? until sleep stole on us unawares and quotations were hushed—for a time.

The 'boys,' sixteen of them, make an early start next morning for Mount Habel. None of our 'party' join their 'express.' But we wander up the Kiwetinok Pass and look over an unknown district to the west. Then we prospect the north ridge of the President, and resolve to make a first attempt on that side. We luncheon in a rocky canyon by the Little Yoho Falls, and returning find camp No. 5 pitched just across the rushing torrent. A signal to Otto, a whistle to his boy, and a tree is felled and thrown across the stream in less than five minutes. Our President rushes across, fixes a rope as a hand-guide, and in a moment we have a safe bridge for the most doddering of us. We have an early meal and make ready for the return of the boys from Habel. Alldritt, the cook, who is a gymnastic instructor at Revelstoke, comes in first, but within ten minutes they are all back and reclining round the camp fire. We serve them with piles of stew, bacon and beans, and red currant jelly. According to camp etiquette everything is eaten from one tin plate, not necessarily together, but a certain amount of mix is inevitable. They really enjoyed being waited on and they did justice to the fare.

On August 14 we made our longest move. While the 'camp' trekked down the Upper Yoho Valley to the Yoho Pass we walked along the President Range almost parallel with the horses. We all turned out in honour of the President and Vice-President to 'do' their name-peaks. Passing up the snow slopes on the west of the President we struck the northern ridge, and after being foiled by one steep chimney, got round an easier way on to the ridge. Then we had a pleasant scramble, in spite of the friable rock, along the ridge to the summit, which consists of a snow dome and a cornice some forty feet above the last rock and cairn. We had a splendid view, Mount Forbes being particularly well seen to the north and Mount Mummery to the north-west. This was perhaps our best high view, for the Selkirk peaks were plainly visible.

After luncheon at the cairn we deposited the Club 'card,' and then cut steps down the eastern ice-slope and went down steep but broken rock to the col. A short snow slope put us on the ridge of the Vice-President, which we followed to its summit. Then we turned to the south-east, and went down the long snow ridge, enjoying one delicious glissade, until we reached the glacier looking down on Emerald Lake. It seemed an easy descent, but we soon struck lines of crevasses which made a long traverse necessary, and then, when we appeared to be within a few hundred feet of the valley, we were cut off by an impracticable ice-fall. The official descent being page 16 barred, we had to ascend the rocks on the left of the glacier and traverse round broken rock until we were above the Yoho Pass before we could find a route down. This accomplished, we emerged on flowery fields, but the usual half-hour's floundering in the forest followed. That half-hour so winded me that I lay in a ball and gasped for breath. But tea and a swim in the beautiful Summit Lake put us in fettle again, and we gathered round our camp fire with a pleasure only dimmed because we knew it was the last. I think everyone contributed something to the entertainment; and I believe I contributed three 'new' stories drawn from a suddenly-remembered past. Even the cook came out as an unconscious (?) satirist: 'Why, I was told I was to take out a party of scientists; I soon found out what a mistake tliat was.' And so we talked and sang and watched the red sparks from the pine logs glitter upwards into the blue night, while the silent stars looked down. And the spell of it all fell on us, a spell we shall hear calling us back to the West—how irresistibly!

We walked down the Yoho Pass along a good trail, and in an hour and a half reached Emerald Lake and the C.P.R. Chalet. And so we came back to civilisation. It caught us in different forms: some called for beer, some for a daily paper, some for a hot bath. And then we sat down to a sumptuous luncheon, and vegetarianism seemed an absurd doctrine, and life seemed very good. And how the ladies rowed us in boats, and how we drove down in style to Field, and how the English guests entertained their Canadian hosts at a farewell dinner, and how everybody proposed the health of everybody else—surely these things are written in the chronicles of the Alpine Club of Canada, or in that 'Minute Book' in which the British 'Scientist' and 'Leader' wrote the first entry.