They Landed Seven Or Eight Tons Of Freight And Pitched
Camp Beside Ours.
I am delighted to have companions so congenial - we
have now a village.
As I set out to climb the second mountain, three thousand feet high,
on the east side of the glacier, I met many tourists returning from a
walk on the smooth east margin of the glacier, and had to answer many
questions. I had a hard climb, but wonderful views were developed and
I sketched the glacier from this high point and most of its upper
fountains.
Many fine alpine plants grew here, an anemone on the summit, two
species of cassiope in shaggy mats, three or four dwarf willows,
large blue hairy lupines eighteen inches high, parnassia, phlox,
solidago, dandelion, white-flowered bryanthus, daisy, pedicularis,
epilobium, etc., with grasses, sedges, mosses, and lichens, forming a
delightful deep spongy sod. Woodchucks stood erect and piped
dolefully for an hour "Chee-chee!" with jaws absurdly stretched to
emit so thin a note - rusty-looking, seedy fellows, also a smaller
striped species which stood erect and cheeped and whistled like a
Douglas squirrel. I saw three or four species of birds. A finch flew
from her nest at my feet; and I almost stepped on a family of young
ptarmigan ere they scattered, little bunches of downy brown silk,
small but able to run well. They scattered along a snow-bank, over
boulders, through willows, grass, and flowers, while the mother, very
lame, tumbled and sprawled at my feet.
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