Our Northern Rockies 



3 6 9 



Continental Divide — Pentagon Peak (Limestone) 



those described in the valley of the 

 South Fork of Flathead. 



The abruptness of the ranges to the 

 east of the Divide and the lines of con- 

 tinuous cliff, make the trails across them 

 steep, slippery and dangerous, and de- 

 tours of many miles are often necessary 

 in order to cross some unbroken line of 

 cliff. We find a trail which we built as 

 long ago as '97, since used only by elk 

 and deer, and which is still in condition 

 to use ; and at last the pack animals are 

 safely over it. During our journey we 

 have found many difficulties — cliffs and 

 canyons in the mountains, and in the 

 valleys the problem has been to make 

 our way through dense forest growths, 

 often complicated by large areas of 

 wind-fallen timber and sometimes by 

 swampy ground, or all three of these 



conditions at the same time, when the 

 problem has been well-nigh disheart- 

 ening. We are sometimes confronted 

 with the debris of a snowslide, which 

 makes no small delay in our progress 

 toward the objective point. We have 

 found large areas that have been burned 

 over by forest fires, which transform 

 live, cool forests into desolate tangles 

 of dead trunks, and we have passed 

 through fires, smouldering, which would 

 have become a raging conflagration with 

 the advent of a heavy wind, a by-no- 

 means uncommon thing in the mountain 

 districts. These fires are often started 

 by Indians, out hunting, who build 

 smudges to protect their horses from 

 the big flies and mosquitoes, and so pre- 

 vent the animals from stampeding. 

 These insects are a terrible affliction to 



