CHAPTER XXIII 



DOWN AVALANCHE CREEK, AND OUT 



Cutting our Way Out A Side Trip to High Summits Discovery of 

 Lake Josephine A Camp for Three A Lofty Hunting Ground 

 My Luck Against the Storm-Clouds A Body-Racking Descent 

 The Struggle for a Trail OutMr. Phillips and I Go Out on 

 Foot The Jack Pine, Down and Up Running Logs Over Down 

 Timber Out at Last. 



BELOW Camp Necessity, the valley of Avalanche 

 Creek was in a frightful state. It was full of " down 

 timber," through which no trail ever had been cut. Our 

 guides knew that to cut our way out to Elk River Valley 

 would be a serious undertaking, but it was voted less 

 laborious and more expeditious than to retrace our route, 

 and swing back twenty-five miles northward. To retrace 

 our steps would mean a total loss in distance of at least 

 fifty miles, half of it over very bad trails, with much 

 climbing; so the guides and the cook voted to chop out 

 a trail down stream in order to save the horses. 



At the beginning it seemed like a three days' task, and 

 it afforded an interval that Charlie Smith and I made 

 haste to spend in a hunt up to the summits south of our 

 camp. He said, 



" There is some mighty fine country up there. I have 

 seen it from the south, but I don't believe any white 

 man ever has been in it, at least not in my time. There 



