The Ascent of the North Palisades. g 



The canon of this large stream is typically glacial — 

 a great U-shapcd trough, lined along its bottom with 

 meadows and thin timber. The view down its course was 

 very fine. Far across the Middle Fork Canon rose the 

 black crags of the Woodworth Divide. Great talus-fans 

 and moraines clung to the mountain-sides above, but the 

 lower slopes were clothed with verdure and forests of 

 red fir and tamarack. The meadows were ablaze with 

 flowers; myriads of columbines, castilleias, tiger-lilies, 

 strawberries, and tiny compositae were everywhere. The 

 place was absolutely untouched. Not since the creation 

 of the forest reserve had human foot trod this glorious 

 wilderness, and even before that time the sheepmen who 

 visited the valley must have been few indeed, for not a 

 blaze, monument, nor corral did we see, and there were 

 but few signs of old sheep-camps. 



Here we stopped for noon. A fire was lighted and 

 tea made in our tin bucket. Bread and prunes were pro- 

 duced, and we enjoyed a well-earned rest of two hours. 

 But anxiety as to the outcome of the day's tramp and 

 the sort of camping-place we might run into before night- 

 fall started us out all too soon. The way now lay across 

 the valley and up the side of the great cafion along the 

 course of a tiny stream which we Imew drained the dis- 

 tant amphitheater between the Palisades, five thousand 

 feet above. Our path at first lay quite a distance to the 

 left of the stream, which we called Glacier Brook, and 

 the climbing for the most part was through alpine pas- 

 lures spangled with flowers. But soon we began to leave 

 this region of life, and again to enter that of desolation — 

 of rock and snow. A thousand feet above the valley we 

 passed over the old moraine, and now the grade of the 



