CHAPTER XXIII--Up To Chaney Glacier and the Discovery of a ThreeThousand Foot Precipice
It was a hard job digging the camp out of the snow, and only the factthat Tom had covered the wood and weighted down the canvas to hold it ongave them dry fuel to cook with. They had no snow shovels, usingfrying-pans and dippers to clear away the drifts from the fire pit andtheir packs.
"Valley Forge is the right name," Mr. Crimmins laughed as he stamped hisfeet and blew on his fingers, as Robert had done.
But the sun was now up, the air was rapidly warming, and while Joe gotthe breakfast, Mills and Tom waded out through the snow in search of thehorses. They had to go a long way, too, for the wise beasts had simplywandered down the trail into the woods, and kept on descending untilthey had got below the snow line into rain, where the grass was notcovered and they could feed. It was almost two hours later that theRanger and Tom came driving them back, cross, hungry, and with bootssoaked by the snow and clothes soaked by the wet bushes.
So they got a late start that morning.
"We'll go up the Little Kootenai Canon," said Mills, "as far as the oldcabin of Death-on-the-trail Reynolds, and see how the land lies for atry at the west wall of Cleveland the next day. If it isn't promising,we can make an afternoon trip up to Waterton Lake, and then come backthe next day. If it does look like a try at the big mountain, we canpush up the side a way, and make a base camp."
So they mounted, and pushed up through the soft, rapidly melting snow tothe top of the ridge where the Divide crosses from the eastern to thewestern range, and after a short trip through the snow-filled, openmeadows of Flat Top, with the little pines and balsams looking likeChristmas cards, they began to drop down a more than two-thousand footslope into the canyon of the Little Kootenai River, which flows duenorth, with Cleveland on the right, and Kootenai and Citadel Peaks onthe left. Especially Citadel Peak was superb in its snow mantle, agreat, glistening white fortress towering thousands of feet up from thecanyon.
They reached the old cabin of Death-on-the-trail Reynolds at oneo'clock, and found there the ranger for that district.
"How about Cleveland?" Mills asked.
"Getting sort of tired of life?" the other ranger inquired.
"That's what I thought," Mills replied. "Any chance to-morrow?"
"Not much. She'll melt on the lower slopes to-day, but the peak'll notbegin cataracting snowslides till to-morrow morning, about ten A.M. Dayafter you might make it."
"No use--we can't wait that long," said Mr. Crimmins. "I'm sorry, buteven the State Department can't control nature."
So, after lunch in the cabin, they left the packhorses behind, and freeto travel at a good gait, trotted down the trail to Waterton Lake, along, narrow, beautiful sheet of green water which stretched away northten miles, into Canada, and being warm with the ride the two scouts andRobert had a swim--or, at least, they went into the water. They came outbefore they had swum far, their bodies stung red as boiled lobsters bythe cold.
"This Park reminds me of the poem," Robert said,
"'Water, water everywhere, but not a place to swim.'"
Back at the Ranger's cabin, they had a big, leisurely supper, with theRanger as their guest, and after supper he told them tales ofDeath-on-the-trail Reynolds, an old mining prospector, who had firstbuilt the cabin, and when the Park became national property was made aranger, and true to his name died in the saddle on one of the trails hehad followed so long. This old trail from Waterton Lake south over FlatTop and down Mineral Creek to McDonald Creek, and so to Lake McDonald,was a regular smuggler's route in the old days, the Ranger said, andmany a horse had been driven down it in the dark, before the Americanrangers on one end and the Canadian Northwestern mounted police on theother put a stop to that sort of thing.
That night they slept in the cabin, and early the next day went back intheir tracks--the first time they had repeated a trail--reaching "ValleyForge" camp at noon. The snow was about all melted here now, and whenMills pointed up the cliffs to the east, and said Chaney Glacier layjust on the other side, it was voted to camp here once more, and spendthe afternoon on the glacier, and the peak above.
"I've never been up that peak," Mills said, "but I have a hunch there'dbe some view up there."
Lunch was eaten quickly, Tom got out his rope, and they started.
It was an easy climb, and could have been made without the rope,probably, though the rope was a great help in making speed. After a longgrade up a shale slide, and across a snow-field, they reached the baseof a rough, jagged cliff, and by picking out upward slanting ledges onthis cliff, Tom led the way rapidly upward, Mills keeping the rear ofthe rope anchored, while Tom anchored the upper end, thus making a roperailing on the outer edge of each ledge. In less than an hour theyreached the spine of the Divide, at a col between two higher peaks. Thisspine was a knife blade, not over ten feet wide, and directly on theeast side, with its upper edge so close you could step off on to it, layChaney Glacier, a vast field of snow now, with little ice showing, amile in extent, and sloping downward till the lower end disappeared overthe rim of a precipice. Out beyond this precipice, they saw the BellyRiver Canon, looking straight down it, over the green waters of GlennsLakes, to the spot where they had camped, and beyond that to the greenocean of the prairies. From here, too, they got a superb view ofCleveland, rearing up, still snow covered, a great pyramid of white.
"Want to go out on the glacier?" the Ranger asked Joe.
"Oh, I don't mind," Joe laughed. "The rope's strong."
Every one did want to go out on the glacier, so Mills roped them all,keeping last place himself, and they ventured out over the apparentlyunbroken field of snow. But this snow was light and rapidly melting, andthey had not gone far before Tom, in the lead, with a sounding staff hehad cut before they left camp, detected a frail snow bridge and sent itcrumbling down into the crevasse, disclosing the green ice walls. Onelook down this well into the ice decided the party not to venture farover the treacherous field, and they returned to the firm rocks of theDivide, and climbed on up another eight hundred feet to the top of thepeak to the south.
The summit of this peak was only about the size of a big table, and tothe east it fell away absolutely sheer for three thousand feet to a tinylake far below, out of which, on the opposite side, shot up the cliffwall of Merritt. The wind was strong up here, and the peak so small thatall six lay on their stomachs to peer over the precipice.
"Say, that's a hole in the earth!" Mr. Crimmins exclaimed.
Mt. Cleveland and Glenns Lakes]
Robert spit over the edge. "I never spit three thousand feet before," hesaid. "Want to climb up that cliff with your rope, Tom?"
Tom shook his head. "It couldn't be done, not even by a goat," he said,wisely.
"As a matter of fact, you're right," Mills laughed. "I never even knewthat cliff was here, either. This Park hasn't been more'n half exploredyet."
From almost the very top of this peak, a long, very steep shale slopeled to the "Valley Forge" meadow, and down this they descended, by theaid of the rope, sending showers of stones ahead, so that the leader wasin constant danger, and wearing down the spikes and soles of their bootsrapidly. They camped that night in the old spot, using their former firepit, but there was no storm, and the next day they had an uneventfulpassage back down Mineral Creek, up to Swift Current by the trail Joehad first climbed in the rain, and so on back to Many Glacier--a longtrip of twenty-four miles, but to Joe, who by this was as hard as nails,not very tiresome. At Many Glacier the boys bid the two men and Robertgood-bye, and as darkness was gathering, once more cooked their supperin Camp Kent, which by now was like home to them.
"Well," said Tom, "that was some trip, old wifey--let's see, we were sixdays out, and we didn't meet a soul after we left the road till we gotback to Granite Park, except the ranger up under Cleveland. The realwilderness stuff, eh?"
"You bet!" said Joe. "And eighteen dollars more for me and ma."
"You're getting terribly
practical," Tom laughed.
"I'm getting self-supporting," Joe replied. "No more grafting off you."
"You're getting _well_," Tom cried. "That's the real thing. Gee, you'reharder'n I am now! You never seem to get tired."
"Bet I can hit the little old cot, though," Joe laughed, as he began tomake up the beds in the tent.