Glenora Mountain : A Repetition of Muir's Climb, i^/p 155 



gold-seekers in 1898 had passed night and day in feverish haste. 

 They journeyed up the Stikine River — generally after it had fro- 

 zen — to Glenora, then a flourishing town, and down the Teslin, 

 Hootalinqua, and Lewes rivers into the Yukon. A pitifully equip- 

 ped lot they must have been for the work in hand. Bob recalled that 

 among them there were Chinamen carrying their polished brass rice- 

 bowls into the wilderness and men driving ox-carts, although be- 

 yond Telegraph Creek the road became a trail narrow even for the 

 pack-train. 



We had, for some miles as we rode, good views of the ample green 

 slopes that lead up to the summit of Glenora Mountain. The sum- 

 mit itself, of grayish-looking rock, much foreshortened from our 

 viewpoint, appeared above a small snow-field. 



As Muir pointed out, the summit is not an isolated peak, but 

 rather more in the nature of a jagged ridge broken by cliffs and 

 gullies into separate pinnacles. Viewed later from the river steamer 

 at various distances, the summit ridge appeared not to have any one 

 pinnacle especially preponderating in altitude over the others. 



It soon became evident that Bob's Indian trail did not lead up the 

 main mountain at all; so we continued to the base of a ridge, still 

 about two miles distant from Glenora, which appeared to offer the 

 most direct route through the timber and toward the summit. After 

 lunch we began the climb up a gently rising timbered flat. Inwardly 

 rejoicing that we had escaped the Scylla of real alpine difficulties, 

 we were soon to be swallowed up by a vegetable Charybdis which, 

 disguised by distance as a grassy slope, invites the innocent to de- 

 struction — at least to the destruction of his outer garments and his 

 peace of mind. Thick growths of small trees, various sorts of wil- 

 lows, all but impenetrable horizontal alder thickets, some of the limbs 

 of which were three inches thick, defended the lower ramparts of the 

 mountain. The art of traveling through such obstacles is known to 

 the native Indian, and my admiration for Bob grew as I found him 

 keeping true to our general direction in spite of many windings. But 

 our hard labors for an hour and a half only netted us a rise of about 

 1500 feet, or less than 1000 feet an hour. Another hour and a half 

 brought us well above the timber to steep green slopes mostly covered 

 with a luxurious growth — one might better say a thatch — of stunted 

 evergreens and flat-spreading junipers difficult to pass in ascent and 

 slippery in descent. 



