Through the Olympics With the Mountaineers 151 



growth. How faces brightened when, towards noon, we 

 reached an open gravel bar beside a bend in the Elwha where 

 the sun shone brightly, the river ran sparkling over rapids, 

 and on every hand bloomed beds of pink and yellow mimulus ! 

 In the heart of the solemn, aged forest we had surprised a for- 

 gotten lurking place of spring. 



Later we emerged from the woods into an alpine park whose 

 every rock and hillock was crowned by patient mountaineers 

 awaiting the pack-train. This was Elwha Basin, our home for 

 eight days to come, a sloping amphitheatre lying under a 

 snowy range. Its high western walls, streaked with snow and 

 hung with waterfalls, concealed the neighboring peaks of 

 Queets and Meany, but the splendidly sculptured Seattle 

 Group loomed grandly above us to southward. Far down the 

 Elwha Canon rose Mt. Anderson, whose wide snow-fields 

 shone upon us each evening rosy with alpenglow. On the 

 ridges of the basin, out of the track of avalanches, long arms 

 of forest invaded the heather slopes ; and daisies, columbine 

 and violets bloomed on the uplands though the lower meadows 

 were hidden by snow. 



After a day devoted to camp making and fitting boots with 

 screw-caulks we were ready for the practice climb, an un- 

 named peak of the Seattle Group. Eighty-two climbers were 

 enrolled. All were equipped with alpenstocks or ice axes and 

 all wore dark glasses and heavy gauntlets, and smeared faces 

 with grease paint as protection against snow-burn. Across 

 the basin, up snow-fields, past the sculptured ice of a glacier 

 we climbed, and on over higher snow-fields to a ridge of rock. 

 Here our troubles began. Showers of loosened rocks sent 

 down by novices so delayed the long line that noon was upon 

 us before all had crossed from snow to rocks. After luncheon 

 we resumed our upward way. It was slow, harassing work, 

 swinging from rock to snow and back again, always menaced 

 by falling stones. In some places climbing was quite difficult. 

 Here the efficiency of the Mountaineers organization showed 

 admirably. Wherever a helping hand could possibly be needed, 

 wherever there was chance for accident, a reliable man was 

 posted, ready to chop steps in the ice, to use his alpenstock for 

 foot or hand hold, or to steady a life-line. The summit was 



