THE MOUNTAINS 355 



! 



every bend of the main stream to leave it at right angles and 

 pursue an equally water-governed course to the feeding- 

 ground. 



The bird-loving tourist may find all the birds mentioned, 

 and many others, virtually at the door of his hotel, but this 

 is not all the region has to offer him. By ascending those 

 mountains which reach above timberline, here at about 7500 

 feet altitude, he will enter another world with a new fauna 

 and flora, leaving behind him all the forest-haunting birds, 

 and finding others not one of which he has seen below. He 

 will leave behind, too, the hotels and some inharmonious ele- 

 ments of human life for which they are responsible. The 

 morning we left Lake Louise for Ptarmigan Pass , fifteen 

 miles to the north, a westbound Convention was taking pos- 

 session of the place, and I have often wondered how many 

 times my party of artist and guide, with our five horses, was 

 photographed before we crossed the railway at Laggan. 



We forded the Pipestone, (now bankfull and flowing with 

 almost force enough to take the horses off their feet), just 

 above its junction with the Bow, making no doubt a fine sub- 

 ject for the last of the kodak-snapping conventionists who, 

 not concerned about our photographic apparatus, doubtless 

 enjoyed the experience more than we did. 



Passing through the Murray pines of the river valley, we 

 began the ascent to the Ptarmigan Lakes, camping that af- 

 ternoon in the Engelman spruce, and Lyall's larch, at tim- 

 berline, just below the mouth of Ptarmigan Pass. The view 

 from this point gave a new meaning to the word ' ' indescrib- 

 able. ' ' The mountains across the Bow Valley to the south 

 Temple, the peaks of Moraine Lake, Hungabee, Le- 

 f roy and Victoria form perhaps the most beautiful and im- 

 pressive group in the Canadian Rockies. To climb them and 

 explore their passes and deeply cut valleys, is a thrilling ex- 

 perience, but it is like viewing a play from the stage ; to see 

 this stupendous array of snow-clad peaks, one should as- 

 cend the mountains to the north, in themselves comparative- 



