52 THE ADVENTURES OF A NATURE GUIDE 



confusion of white whirled clouds. All this time 

 the sun was shining in a blue sky; and all this time, 

 too, a sparkling pennant of diamond snow dust 

 and powder a mile long was fluttering from the tip 

 of a triangular peak. 



With such scenes in mind — the trees abloom 

 with flakes, the white and sparkling whirlwinds, 

 the vast and scintillating snow-powder pennants — 

 I could understand the poetic fancy of primitive 

 people who happily named winter's gifts "snow- 

 flowers" and who honoured the snow period with 

 an outdoor celebration. 



After all, winter is but a transient return of the 

 ice age. With fresh falls on the heights above 

 timberline, before the wind blows, the vast world 

 appears overlaid with a permanent stratum of 

 snow. Across white distances one looks for miles 

 without seeing a tree or any living object or even 

 a shadow unless it be that of a passing cloud. 



Though the high mountains have their snow- 

 storms and their eternal snowfields, in most moun- 

 tain ranges the snowfall on the middle slopes of the 

 mountains is heavier than upon the high plateaus 

 and summits. On the heights the wind has free 

 play and sweeps most of the snow into enormous 

 piles or drifts. These are one hundred or more feet 

 deep and sometimes cover nearly a square mile. 

 Owing to their depth, the low temperature of the 

 heights, and the fact that they are so densely 

 packed, these snow masses endure throughout the 



