GLACIER PARK 57 



but only so long as the snowcaps last. Between us and 

 Heaven's Peak was a hole of unfathomed depth. As 

 we began to descend, realizing that the storm had been 

 entirely centred over the crest of the Continental 

 Divide, we could see into this hole, which was disclosed 

 as a double canon entirely wooded with huge evergreen 

 timber. We camped that night in the clouds, above the 

 tops of the primeval forest. 



The next morning the descent began to the bottom of 

 the canon between the two ranges. The good trail had 

 ceased. Uncle Sam doesn't care what becomes of you 

 beyond the pass. We scrambled down three thousand 

 feet, walking our horses most of the way and chopping 

 out fallen logs, getting into larger and larger timber as 

 we dropped. This forest is not comparable, of course, 

 to the stands of Oregon fir in the Cascades, but it is a 

 splendid wood, none the less, chiefly white pine, fir and 

 tamarack, averaging at least sixty feet of clear stump 

 before a limb is reached. At the bottom of the canon 

 we turned up Mineral Creek by the dim trail which 

 leads ultimately to Waterman Lake and Canada, a 

 trail known of old to the smugglers, and plodded on for 

 a dozen miles through the forest, seeing no wild thing, 

 hearing no birds, hardly glimpsing even the walls on 

 either side. Then, in late afternoon, we began to go up 

 again. We saw the Continental Divide above the trees 

 to the east. To the west we saw the cliffs of Flattop 

 Mountain, the long, low ridge which splits the canon. 



