4S2
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
MAGAZINE
A SINGLE MATTERHORN-LIKE SUMMIT TOWERED IX LONELY SPLENDOR
(SEE PAGE 483) T h e scene which greeted us was indeed one of wildest grandeur. T w o hundred feet below us a raging torrent foamed out from beneath the glacier, racing into a narrow gorge with a thunderous roar. Lower down it emerged, and we could follow its course for perhaps a mile further winding between banks densely overgrown with alders. There the valley widened out and its gradients became gentler, but of forest there was hardly a patch. Alders and steep grassy slopes were the rule. Nearer, on either hand, its sides slanted abruptly back in rough rock-piles, breaking into cliffs higher up. where ice fringed the skyline and sharp summits stood out black against the evening sky. It was a rather disheartening outlook for a hungn- party with nothing but green wood in sight for miles. But we couldn't be worse off than where we were on the glacier, so we prepared to push further down the gorge on the chance that something better would appear. Just then what was our surprise to see
on a ridge of the moraine not 200 feet away a tine yearling grizzly bear. He had been traveling in our direction, but out of sight below the moraine, and hisastonishment at finding himself suddenly face to face with three strange creatures was ludicrous to behold. H e stopped short, looked us over for a full minute, then gave a deep "hoo wuff" and. turning around, disappeared. Regretting that our cameras were tightly strapped up in our packs, we continued our way down into the gorge. "We had progressed hardly a hundred feet when, above us on the mountain side, lo, another grizzly was sighted, this time a full-grown mother bear with a cub. She was nosing about in the alder bushes apparently unaware of our presence, and looking for all the world like a contentedly grazing cow. With no arms but our ice-axes and notrees nearer than 5 miles, it did not seem wise to disturb the brute or to give h e r any reason for desiring to make our a c ouaintance. so we slid down the slipperv forefoot of the glacier to the edge of thr-