STEEP TRAILS 



mountaineering so late in the year; therefore I 

 could not ask a guide to go with me, even had 

 one been willing. All I wanted was to have 

 blankets and provisions deposited as far up in 

 the timber as the snow would permit a pack- 

 animal to go. There I could build a storm 

 nest and lie warm, and make raids up and 

 around the mountain in accordance with the 

 weather. 



Setting out on the afternoon of November 

 first, with Jerome Fay, mountaineer and guide, 

 in charge of the animals, I was soon plodding 

 wearily upward through the muffled winter 

 woods, the snow of course growing steadily 

 deeper and looser, so that we had to break a 

 trail. The animals began to get discouraged, 

 and after night and darkness came on they be 

 came entangled in a bed of rough lava, where, 

 breaking through four or five feet of mealy 

 snow, their feet were caught between angular 

 boulders. Here they were in danger of being 

 lost, but after we had removed packs and sad 

 dles and assisted their efforts with ropes, they 

 all escaped to the side of a ridge about a thou 

 sand feet below the timber-line. 



To go farther was out of the question, so we 

 were compelled to camp as best we could. A 

 pitch-pine fire speedily changed the tempera 

 ture and shed a blaze of light on the wild lava- 



60 



