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

When the railroad first made this region accessible to tourists, the Selkirks rapidly acquired a remarkable popularity, especially among mountain climbers. In this early period several parties came over from England and other countries of Europe with the express purpose of making mountain ascents. Such parties were those of Dr. Green and the two Swiss climbers Huber and Sulzer. A good idea of the difficulties presented by the higher peaks to skilled mountaineers may be had from the fact that Dr. Green and his party only succeeded in reaching the summit of one high peak, while Huber and Sulzer left the Hermit Range in defeat, though they succeeded in reaching the top of the sharp rock peak, Mount Sir Donald, the Matterhorn of the Selkirks.

One of the chief difficulties to overcome is the penetration of the forest belt below the tree line. No one who has not tried a Selkirk forest has any conception of its nature in this respect. There are huge tree trunks lying on or near the ground, which have been thrown down by the precipitate fury of some winter snow slide, or have fallen by the natural processes of death and decay. These great obstacles are ofttimes covered with a slippery coating of moss and lichens, while the ground is fairly concealed by a rank growth of ferns, and plants in countless variety. The density of the underbrush is rendered still more trying to the mountaineer by reason of a plant of the Ginseng family, which from its terrible nature is most fitly named the Devil’s Club, for it is armed with thousands of long needle-like spines. This plant grows five or six feet high, with a stout stem bearing a few leaves of large size. The spines, which are an inch or more in length, project in every direction like an array of quills on a porcupine, and are strong enough to penetrate the skin and flesh with surprising facility. The alder bushes attain a peculiar growth in the Selkirks; each bush consists of a bunch of long slender stems, which spread out from the ground in every direction, ofttimes with nearly prostrate branches, which interlace and form a wellnigh impassable hedge. The alder bushes are found most numerous on bare slopes of the mountains, where snow slides have stripped down the forests; or in ravines, where the crumbling earth gives no certain foothold to larger and nobler trees.

In 1893, A. and I made an ascent of Eagle Peak. This mountain lies just to the west from the great wedge-shaped rock summit of Mount Sir Donald. The altitude of Eagle Peak is, I believe, a little more than 9400 feet above sea-level, and as the Glacier House is only 4400 feet, the ascent involves a climb of 5000 feet. The name of the mountain is derived from a great crag or cliff near the summit, which appears to lean out from a ridge, and bears a striking resemblance to the head of an eagle. When we were making our ascent we came suddenly on the Eagle itself, which now, on a nearer view, proved to be of colossal size, a great leaning tower, about sixty feet high. Rising from one of the rocky ridges, it reached upwards and outwards till the outermost point seemed to overhang a bottomless abyss, perhaps twenty or twenty-five feet beyond the verge of the precipice.

The ridge just below the summit is a scene of wild confusion, for the rocky ledges have been split up and wedged apart by frost and storms till they appear as giant blocks of stone ten or fifteen feet high, between the crevices of which one may catch glimpses of the valley and forests thousands of feet below.

Mount Sir Donald, from Eagle Peak.

The view from the summit of Eagle Peak is magnificent and well worth the labor of the climb. The proximity of Mount Sir Donald, which towers more than 1200 feet higher, causes its sullen precipices to appear strikingly grand. The great Illicellewaet névé, with its twenty square miles or more of unbroken snow fields, stretches out in the distance and forms part of the eastern horizon. The rugged appearance of the Hermit Range to the west, with its sharp ridges and needles, is perhaps the most tumultuous part in all this wild sea of mountain peaks. It has been stated on good authority that from Mount Abbott, a far lower ridge on the farther side of the valley, more than one hundred and twenty individual glaciers may be counted, but there are even more within view from Eagle Peak.

We remained on the summit till nearly three o’clock, and thereby took a great risk, as we learned afterwards to our exceeding regret. Before leaving, however, we built a high cairn and fixed several handkerchiefs among the stones so as to render it, if possible, visible from the valley below.

In our descent we found no trouble till we reached tree line, when the gathering gloom of nightfall, made earlier by a cloudy sky, aroused our apprehensions and led us to a serious mistake. Thinking that it would be better to follow the course of a stream, which had cut out a deep ravine in the mountain side, as there would be more light, for a time at least, we commenced our descent with all speed. We soon found ourselves in a trap, as the sides of the ravine grew constantly deeper and steeper as we descended, and it was at length impossible to get out at all. Floundering about among the long trailing branches of alders, our descent soon became a mixture of sliding, falling, and, indeed, every method of progress save rational walking. The darkness came on rapidly, as the days were short and the twilight much curtailed, it being late in the summer. In an hour it became so absolutely black that the foamy course of the stream we followed was the only visible object, as even the stars were concealed and their light shut out by a heavy covering of dark cloud. Sometimes the long, prostrate branches of the alders would catch our feet in a most exasperating manner, and cause one or the other to slide temporarily head-foremost, till some branch or root could be seized in the hand and the progress arrested. Once I saw a white object, just below me apparently, and thinking it might be a stone, was about to lower myself in fancied security when suddenly I realized that it was the foam of the stream some fifty feet below, and that we were on the edge of a precipice! At another time I fell headlong through a bush and brought up against some great obstacle around which I wound my leg, not knowing whether it might be a huge grizzly or some other denizen of the forest, when sure enough it moved away, and rolled over my leg. It was a great boulder nearly a yard in diameter.

This nocturnal descent was the most bitter experience I have ever had in mountain climbing, as the anxiety and worry consequent upon each movement were exquisitely painful, and continued three hours. Arrived at the bottom of the slope at ten o’clock P.M., we found ourselves in the mass of fallen logs and debris near the stream, and likewise near the trail. Under the spell of a certain assurance that a few minutes more of toil would bring us out to the trail, we thought nothing of falling into holes four or five feet deep, as we plunged about among the logs, or, when walking on them, occasionally stepped off into space.