At the close of our camping experiences, we effected the conquest of two mountains, Hazel Peak and Mount Temple, on two successive days. We first tried Hazel Peak, and by following the route which had been previously selected, we found the ascent remarkably easy. On the summit, the climber is 10,370 feet above sea-level,—higher than the more celebrated Mount Stephen, often claimed to be the highest along the railroad,—and surrounded by more high peaks than can be found at any other known part of the Canadian Rockies, south of Alaska. In fact there are seven or eight peaks within a radius of six miles that are over 11,000 feet high.
The view is, at the same time, grand and inspiring, and has certain attractions that high mountain views rarely present. The rock precipice and snow-crowned crest of Mount Lefroy are separated from the summit of Hazel Peak by one of the grandest and deepest canyons of the Canadian Rockies, so that the distance from summit to summit is only one mile and a half. The ascent of Hazel Peak is certainly well worth the labor of the climb, as the round trip may be easily accomplished from Paradise Valley in five hours, though the ascent is nearly 4000 feet.
On the north side, from the very summit, a fine glacier sweeps down in steep pitch far into the valley below and with its pure white snow and yawning blue crevasses of unfathomable depth, forms one of the most attractive features of this mountain. The most remarkable and beautiful object that we discovered, however, was a small lake or pool of water only a few yards below the summit of the mountain. Encircled on all sides by the pure snows of these lofty altitudes, and embedded, as it were, in a blue crystal basin of glacier ice, the water of this little lake was colored deep as indigo, while over the surface a film of ice, formed during the previous night, had not yet melted away.
Camp in Paradise Valley.
We returned to camp much elated with our success but doubtful of the morrow, as no easy route had yet been discovered up the forbidding slopes of Mount Temple. The year before, Mr. A. and I had been hopelessly defeated even when we had counted most on success. Moreover, the mere fact that, though this mountain was the highest yet discovered anywhere near the railroad, it had never been ascended by any surveyor or climber, made success appear less probable, though it urged us on to a keener ambition.
The attempt by A. and myself to ascend this mountain in 1893 was probably the first ever made. During the first week of August, we started from Laggan, having with us a Stoney Indian, named Enoch Wildman, and one horse to carry our tent and provisions. The day was unusually hot, and, as we forced our monotonous and tiresome passage through the scanty forests of pine near the Bow River, we suffered very much from heat and thirst. In these mountain excursions, it is the best policy to wear very heavy clothes, even at the disadvantage of being uncomfortable during the day, for the nights are invariably cold, even at low altitudes. We did not camp until nightfall, when we found ourselves on the northern slope of the mountain, 7000 feet above sea-level, by the side of a small lake. The little lake occupied a depression among giant boulders and the debris of the mountain. At one end, a large bank of snow extended into and below the water, which was apparently rising, as there were fragments of frozen snow floating about in the lake. The banks sloped steeply into the water on all sides, and there was not a single level spot for our camp, so that it was necessary to build a wall of stones, near the water’s edge, for our feet, and to prevent ourselves from sliding into the lake during the night.
The weather was wild and stormy, and the long night seemed to drag out its weary length to an interminable extent of time, attended as it was by showers of rain and hail and furious gusts of wind, which threatened to bring our flapping tent to the ground at any moment.
Our camp-fire, which had been built on a scale appropriate to some larger race of men, was a huge pile of logs, each fully ten feet long, and twelve or eighteen inches through, but the wind blew so strong that the mass roared like a vast forge during the early hours, and then died away into an inert mass of cinders toward the chill of morning.
The light of day revealed our wild surroundings. We were under the northern precipice of Mount Temple, and so close that we could see only the lower part of this inaccessible wall. A beautiful fall dashed down in a series of cascades through a distance of about 1000 feet, and fed our little lake. Sometimes the strong wind, blowing against the cliff, or sweeping upward, would make the water pause and momentarily hang in mid-air, suspended, as it were, on an invisible airy cushion, till gathering greater volume, it would burst through the barrier and fall in a curtain of sparkling drops.