64 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



shores of Crater Lake, and clambered up into the 

 rushing mists where the blizzard shrieked and moaned 

 alternately, and hurled huge blocks of glacier ice and 

 frozen snow down into the Crater valley. The top 

 was reached at last, and no words of mine can describe 

 the inferno that raged on that dread summit. We lay 

 flat on our faces and writhed our way forward through 

 a bubbling, foaming mass of snow and ice. Our bodies 

 were cut and bruised with the flying debris, and our 

 clothing was torn to rags. The blizzard had new 

 attained an extraordinary pitch ; the mountain seemed 

 to rock and tremble with its fury, and inch by incih 

 we crawled towards the perpendicular declivity leading 

 to the ' Scales 'full eight hundred feet of almost sheer 

 descent. Cautiously we manoeuvred across the great 

 glacier that rests in the Devil's Cauldron a cup -shaped 

 hollow in the top of the notorious pass and at once the 

 blaze of a fire burst before our eyes, illuminating the 

 apparently bottomless depths beyond. 



The ice-field on which we lay overhung the rocks 

 to a dangerous degree, and I realized that we must 

 make the descent from some other part of the semi^ 

 circular ridge. We crept back hurriedly, and as we 

 stood gasping in the ' cauldron ' before making a detour 

 to find a possible trail, a mighty rumbling shook 

 the pass, and we clutched at the snow around, which 1 

 flew upwards in great geyser-like columns, almost 

 smothering us in its descending showers. The over- 

 lapping ice had plunged into the valley, carrying with 

 it hundreds of tons of accumulated snow ; we escaped 

 the powerful suction by a few yards only. 



When we approached the edge a second time, a 

 smooth, unbroken snowsteep marked the trail of the 



