A Week Around Mount Robson 



275 



through." Luckily this feat was not required of me. We 

 made the last crossing, that of Glacier Creek, without mishap, 

 though it ran turbulently over a rough and bouldery bottom. 

 At dusk we pitched camp in a fir- fringed meadow close under 

 Mount Bess. The special charm of this camp was its close 

 proximity to grizzly bears. We plucked their hair off trees for 

 souvenirs, and found their tracks wherever we stepped, even 

 saw drops of water shaken from their coats not yet dry on the 

 streamside rocks, but not a bear did we see. 



From the upper slopes of Bess Pass, where we climbed in 

 the morning, we saw new ranges and valleys of desire. A 

 high green upland and a chain of white peaks that terminated 

 in an icy Olympian mountain aroused our keenest interest. 



"Some day," we said to Donald, "we are coming back, with 

 Sierrans and Mountaineers and three weeks' time and provi- 

 sions instead of one. Save us that beautiful mountain for a 

 first ascent." 



"Sure I will," promised Donald. "Fll set all my bear traps 

 around it in the fall." 



Then we struck camp and started the caravan along the 

 homeward trail. Kinnikinic* and dwarf cornel berries flashed 

 red under the trees, and though the best flower season was 

 past, harebells and paintbrush and asters still bloomed in the 

 open spaces. We left the long shingle bars of the Smoky Val- 

 ley near sunset and rode up through the yellowing meadows of 

 the upper valley. As we rounded Lake Adolphus, Robson and 

 Resplendent again rose before us, banded and crowned with 

 brilliant clouds. Down in the darkening water, too, clouds and 

 mountains were shining as brightly. Looking into the blue 

 depths I thought that, as far as I was concerned, Robson itself 

 was no less unconquerable than its mirrored image or the 

 crests of cloudland piled above it in the sky. 



* Arctostaphylos uva-ursi. Kinnikinic is an Algonquin word meaning a mixture. 

 It is applied also to a mixture of the leaves and bark of several plants — willow, 

 sumac and silky cornel — smoked by the Indians. 



