chapter vi

. of the Guide in connection with Revelstoke, which accordingly must be added to the list of C.P.R. centres. Since the publication of the Guide fine climbing has been accomplished on Mount Moloch and other peaks reached by the north branch of the Illecillewaet River.[44] The extension of Mr. Wheeler’s map to the north is unimportant; the notices in the Guide of Mountain Creek and Mount Pearce are not encouraging, and, so far as Glacier House is concerned, the crest of the Hermit Range forms the limit of ordinary mountaineering in this direction. To the south, on the other hand, both maps extend to regions which can only be reached by a journey of some days, and several of the expeditions described in the Guide clearly lie outside the category now under consideration. No hard-and-fast line can be drawn, and the traveller must use his own judgment; only, if he is at all tied as to time, let him bear in mind that estimates of a journey’s length by little-trodden trails are necessarily very rough, and that what is called a week’s trip may easily turn out to require two or three days less _or more_.

[Sidenote: Guides and Equipment.]

Swiss guides, to the number of six or eight, are imported every summer by the C.P.R. Company, and endeavours are being made to induce some of them to settle permanently at Edelweiss, near Golden, on the Columbia. They are distributed during the season among the four or five centres which have been mentioned. Anyone desiring their services, the charge for which is (or used to be) $5 per day, should communicate as early as possible with the hotel from which he intends to climb. A mountaineer arriving in the C.P.R. district with his ordinary Swiss outfit could thus enjoy plenty of climbing without any special preparations. Even ropes and ice-axes are supplied at Glacier House, and, probably, at the other centres also. The Hudson Bay Company’s excellent blankets can be procured at Banff, and for a single odd night out bedding could probably be borrowed.

There is also plenty of scope for guideless climbing. Some of the expeditions are undoubtedly difficult, and only suitable for an exceptionally strong unguided party; but three reasonably experienced amateurs could accomplish a great deal. As compared with the main chain, the Selkirks offer more snow and ice work and less rock work, and there seem to be more climbs of only moderate difficulty than in the Rockies on the south side of the railway. (For a general comparison of the Selkirks with the Rockies, see Palmer, op. cit. pp. 3-10.)

[Sidenote: The Northern Selkirks.]

Turning now to remoter and less known ground in the Selkirks, to the north of the railway, beyond the Hermit and Clach na Cooden Ranges, a very considerable mountain area is enclosed in the Great Bend of the Columbia River. Pack-horses cannot be used in it effectively, and the conditions of travel are exceptional and extremely difficult; but a large part of it, probably the most interesting part, was explored with extraordinary perseverance by Mr. Howard Palmer’s party from 1908 to 1912. Only in the latter year, on their fifth visit, did they succeed in attaining the summit of Mount Sir Sandford, the monarch of the region. For further information the reader is referred to part iii. of Mr. Palmer’s _Mountaineering and Exploration in the Selkirks_. Part ii. of this fascinating book is equally valuable as a guide to the mountains immediately south of Glacier House, which have already been noticed. Beyond these a still more extensive region remains to be dealt with.

It will have been noticed that Mr. Wheeler’s map, breaking off abruptly along most of its southern margin in the very middle of untrodden snow fields, is itself a challenge to further exploration. His work has been carried a short distance further by the ascents of Mount Beaver and Mount Duncan, and some climbs in the Battle Range, but the regions beyond are still, so far as I am aware, a _terra incognita_, and I am quite unable to say how much further the southern portion of the Selkirks proper continues its alpine character.

[Sidenote: The Purcell Range.]

Between this southern portion and the main chain of the Rockies is another large mountainous tract forming part of the Selkirks system and known as the Purcell Range, comprising the Dogtooth, Spillimacheen and South Purcell Ranges. A rough idea of its extent and situation may be obtained from the sketch map accompanying Dr. Longstaff’s paper in the _Canadian Alpine Journal_,[45] bearing in mind that Mounts Beaver and Duncan rise close to the watershed between the two rivers which also bear those names.

The Dogtooth Range appears to be sub-alpine, and is disposed of in

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