Page:Canadian Alpine Journal I, 2.djvu/169

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Paradise Valley Camp
285

gate has ever been built at the front, and there are besides four places where you can climb over the walls. Now your two-day trippers are a sort of restless youngsters who want to see what the outside of the walls looks like. So the President says: "Certainly, my boys. I can put you over, Jimmy, by that gap on the north-west and you can walk along to the corner and down the south-west side and come back into the yard again by a gap you will find on the south-east. And you, Billy, if you like, may go out by the gap at which Jimmy is to come in and inspect the outside of the south-east fence till you come to the front, where you can easily come in by the gateway." Then he looks down and sees a very small boy. "Please, sir, may I go with Billy?" "Oh, no, my little man, that would make you too tired, and besides, Freddy, you might tear your clothes getting through the fence. But here's Mr. Holmes starting out through the gateway to take Billy's blankets to the place where he must stop tonight. How would you like to go along with him? He will take your blankets, too, if you ask him, and when you are tired he will let you ride on one of those nice ponies. Then tomorrow you can come back with Billy?"

All the boys jump at the chance. Jimmy climbs up from the valley, into the Mitre Pass, slides down that to the Lefroy Glacier, picks his way round the corner of Lefroy to the Victoria Glacier, and pushes upward to the Abbot Pass. If he escapes an avalanche in the Death Trap he passes Lake Oeesa, and at the end of the day staggers down to Lake O'Hara at his first fence corner, wondering if the supply of beans and bedding in the rest-house will meet his needs. However, the rest-house, conducted by a gem of cooks and with a base of supplies at Hector on the C.P.R., makes a new boy of him and sends him the next morning through Opabin Pass into Prospector's Valley, then round his second corner by way of Wenkchemna Pass