Quite a good track was blazed and cleared for about half-way up the hill, and the path though very steep was not bad, only hard on the men carrying the packs, so spells for rest were fairly frequent. The last half where the track had not been cleared was real bad going. A great torrent swept down the bottom of the steep ravine we were ascending, and it had to be crossed many times, which meant a wetting.
The undergrowth was a dense tangle, fallen trees blocked the path and never had we met the accursed devil-club in such abundance.
All things must come to an end, and by 5 o'clock we were clear of the forest and entered a fairly open valley, shut in on all sides by steep cliffs. At the end of the valley rose the snow-covered summit of Mount Kingcome about three miles away.
We had been marching since 9.30 and had ascended about 4,000 feet. We pitched camp in the last clump of wood in the valley, and on the side of the hill.
Though the forest ceased, there were dense masses of impenetrable cover, consisting of salmon-berry, wine-berry and devil-club, for about a mile up the valley, after which the ground was quite open.
Large patches of snow were lying on the bare hills just above the cover—and while selecting our camping ground, I suddenly saw a black object moving across a snow patch about half-a-mile across the valley.
Leaving Kirby and Lansdown to pitch the camp I took Thomson with me, and getting within about 500 yards of the snow patch, saw what looked like a small bear, but as Thomson said, "I never saw a bear with a long tail." The animal was moving quickly over the snow and getting closer every minute to a patch of dense cover. No doubt it was a wolverine. I had a long shot at about 400 yards and knocked up the snow under his belly. In a moment he was in the cover and we never saw him again.
Further up towards the head of the valley we saw a bear moving across a patch of snow, but he, too, disappeared in the cover. Evening was now closing in, so we turned towards camp. About a mile away, just opposite the camp and on some almost precipitous rocks a goat suddenly came into view round a corner of the rock. He must have been lying down all the time out of sight, and it was bad luck not having seen him before, for though to climb the face of the cliff was impossible, we might have got a long shot from below; as it was, by the time we had got up to the foot of the cliff, it was too dark to shoot, so we decide to leave him till next day.
CAMP ON MOUNT KINGCOME.
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