Glenora Mountain : A Repetition of Muir's Climb, i8 1 57 



each side of us. The loneliness of the forest is pleasant compared 

 with the gloom of deserted human habitations. Rather than risk the 

 exposure of a night in the open without blankets and food, we forced 

 a window and entered a cabin belonging to an acquaintance of 

 Bob's. 



Next morning we retraced our steps, literally in many places, Bob 

 showing me with evident satisfaction where we had broken twigs on 

 the preceding day. Four hours' hard work put us at the point at 

 which we turned back the evening before. We sat down beside an 

 icy brook and ate the small remnant of our food. It was cold and 

 there was a high wind. Swirling mist clouds hid the valley and the 

 sun, although occasionally we could discern its disk through them. 

 Advancing rapidly to the head of the grassy meadow, we climbed 

 up what appeared to be an old terminal moraine overgrown with 

 green, then over a long rock-slide, and arrived at a small snow-field 

 which led directly to the steep rock and scree slopes of the final rock- 

 wall. This we reached at a notch, or saddle, between steep pinnacles 

 of disintegrating rock which at first sight appeared unscalable and 

 dropped off sheer on the side opposite. The direction of the ridge 

 seemed to be at right angles to the line of our ascent, so we turned to 

 the left and climbed the first pinnacle. Seeing it was not the highest, 

 we continued along the very broken and sharp crest of the ridge. 

 My guide had now recovered from his feeling that such rocks were 

 impossible, and, although his shoes had no edge-nails, he followed 

 with great determination and natural skill. The rockwork would 

 probably not compare in difficulty with that of a mountain like the 

 Mitre at Lake Louise, but the quantities of loose rock everywhere 

 rendered handholds and footsteps very insecure. From the top of a 

 second rock-spire we saw, across another small pass, a much larger 

 and higher rock-mass. This required careful work, as we had to 

 find our route, but we surmounted it without any great difficulty. It 

 was now nearly half-past three. Continuing forward across the 

 small rocky summit, we saw through the mist squalls another moun- 

 tain mass of apparently the same height, but separated by a pass of 

 considerable width, at the bottom of which lay a glacier — evidently 

 the "small residual glacier" noted by Muir.* Seeing that we were on 

 the highest point of the ridge, we built the marker and put our names 

 and the barometer readings in a tin can under the stones, a formality 



* Loc. cit., p. 52. 



