Camping in the Canadian Rockies / an account of camp life in the wilder parts of the Canadian Rocky mountains, together with a description of the region about Banff, Lake Louise, and Glacier, and a sketch of early explorations.

by Walter Dwight Wilcox

After many disappointments, we at last saw the true summit of our pass or col not far distant, and only a few hundred feet above us. A more gentle slope of snow, free of crevasses, led to it from our position.

Now that we were confident of success, we took this opportunity to rest by a ledge of rocks which appeared above the surrounding snow field. Here we regained confidence along with a momentary rest.

Nothing could surpass the awful grandeur of Mount Lefroy opposite us. Its great cliffs were of solid rock, perpendicular and sheer for about 2500 feet, and then sloping back, at an angle of near fifty degrees, to heights which were shut off from our view by the great hanging glacier. We could just catch a glimpse of its dark precipices, where the mountain wall continued into the unknown valley eastward, through a gorge or rent in the cliffs south of the Mitre. A magnificent avalanche fell from Mount Lefroy as we were resting from our severe exertion, and held our admiring attention for several moments. Another descended from the Mitre and consisted wholly of rocks, which made a sharp cannonade as they struck the glacier below, and showed us the danger to which we should have been exposed had we ascended on the farther side of the slope.

Having roped up once more, we proceeded rapidly toward the summit of the col, being urged on by a strong desire to see what wonders the view eastward might have in store. This is the most pleasurably exciting experience in mountaineering—the approach to the summit of a pass. The conquest of a new mountain is likewise very interesting, but usually the scene unfolds gradually during the last few minutes of an ascent. On reaching the summit of a pass, however, a curtain is removed, as it were, at once, and a new region is unfolded whereby the extent of the view is doubled as by magic.

We were, moreover, anxious to learn whether a descent into this valley would be possible, after we should arrive on the col. We were alternately tormented by the fear of finding impassable precipices of rock, or glaciers rent by deep crevasses, and cheered on by the hope of an easy slope of snow or scree, whereby a safe descent would be offered.

Proceeding cautiously, as we approached the very summit, to avoid the danger of an overhanging cornice of snow, we had no sooner arrived on the highest part than we beheld a valley of surpassing beauty, wide and beautiful, with alternating open meadows and rich forests. Here and there were to be seen streams and brooks spread out before our gaze, clearly as though on a map, and traceable to their sources, some from glaciers, others from springs or melting snow-drifts. In the open meadows, evidently luxuriantly clothed with grass and other small plants, though from our great height it was impossible to tell, the streams meandered about in sinuous channels, in some places forming a perfect network of watercourses. In other parts, the streams were temporarily concealed by heavy forests of dark coniferous trees, or more extensively, by light groves of larch.

This beautiful valley, resembling a park by reason of its varied and pleasing landscape, was closely invested on the south by a half circle of rugged, high mountains rising precipitously from a large glacier at their united bases. This wall of mountains, continuing almost uninterruptedly around, hemmed in the farther side of the valley and terminated, so far as we could see, in a mountain with twin summits of nearly equal height, about one mile apart. The limestone strata of this mountain were nearly perfectly horizontal, and had been sculptured by rain and frost into an endless variety of minarets, spires, and pinnacles. These, crowning the summits of ridges and slopes with ever changing angles, as though they represented alternating walls and roofs of some great cathedral, all contributed to give this mountain, with its elegant contours and outlines, the most artistically perfect assemblage of forms that nature can offer throughout the range of mountain architecture.

On the north side of this mountain, as though, here, nature had striven to outdo herself, there rose from the middle slopes a number of graceful spires or pinnacles, perhaps 200 or 300 feet in height, slender and tapering, which, having escaped the irresistible force of moving glaciers and destructive earthquakes, through the duration of thousands of years, while the elements continued their slow but constant work of disintegration and dissolution, now presented these strange monuments of an ageless past. Compared with these needles, the obelisks and pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Yucatan, or the temples of India are young, even in their antiquity. When those ancient peoples were building, nature had nearly completed her work here.

Discovery of Paradise Valley.