48 THE LOG OF THE 



hands and knees. I think Johnny made the easiest work of it. I 

 know at lunch time (^ of the way up) he went to find water. A 

 perfect downpour of rain did not help matters as the moss is 

 slippery enough even when dry. By three o'clock we had reached 

 what had seemed from the valley, the edge of the cliff. But much 

 to our dismay the land continued upward at only a slightly less steep 

 slope. By looking across the fjord (it had cleared meanwhile some- 

 what) we could see the same thing on the other side. Way in the 

 background was a snow-capped mountain. 



We had come up following the notch cut away by a stream. Soon 

 we came to a small lake and beyond the lake still higher the river 

 continued on its rocky bed. The prospects of walking over so many 

 rocks with no sign of vegetation or wood were not too good. 

 Bart went up a hill on our right to see if he could find a more 

 attractive valley. He came back completely exhausted with the 

 news that ours was as good a way as any. We skirted the lake and 

 pitched the "flytight" against a large boulder after pulling up a 

 great heap of moss to sleep on. The fact that there was not a twig 

 of wood to make a fire with and that it was again raining made 

 our outlook somewhat bad. All hands piled into the tent which 

 was very low there being no poles to hold up the peak and I gave 

 out a cold supper of dried prunes, beans, chicken and chocolate. 

 Once we had our blankets fixed and the tent began to warm up, 

 people began to joke about our situation and our outlook bright- 

 ened. Oily and Woody, since they had sleeping bags, had their lower 

 half outside the tent. The poor "oceanographers" having only one 

 blanket each slept in a pile. During the night it snowed and blew 

 great guns. At times I was rolled over onto poor Mac by the force 

 of the wind pulling on the tent. 



Animal warmth is a great thing and as Oily and Woody lay on 

 our legs we passed a reasonable night only waking up twice when 

 the tent began to leak badly. As we lay during the night, the top of 



