Station; then the Beaver River trail as far as the stream flowing from Grand Glaciers; follow this stream to their forefoot, and so up to the mountain top. The ascent is entirely on ice and snow.
Time required: 4 or 5 days, going time; for the round expedition 8 or 10 days. The camp outfit is carried by ponies—locally, a "pack train."
Route: (2) Take the Asulkan trail and Pass, the Dawson Moraine, Donkin Glacier and Pass, camping the first night in Mitre Creek Valley; the second day, cross the west end of Bishop's Range; the third day ascend the mountain from the west.
Time required: 3 days and 2 nights, going time; for the round trip, 5 days of fine weather. But always in the Selkirks the climber must provide for variable weather. By this route the camp outfit must be carried on the shoulders. For novices more than one Swiss guide is advised.
View: From the summit the views are of snowfields and glaciers cleft by deep-cut valleys filled with ice. Down their steep sides confluent glaciers tumble in wild confusion. Conspicuous among them and very striking are the Grand Glaciers, notably the northern one very much broken and crevassed, showing wonderful'séracs and ice-falls.
Mt. Sugar Loaf itself presents an impressively beautiful view at close range. Except the south-west face, almost the entire massif is covered with snow. The mass of the mountain rises from the most southerly of the Grand Glaciers, in huge mounds and terrace^ of snow. Like Mt. Purity, it is literally entitled to be called a white mountain, a mountain of driven snow.
Sunbeam Lake—Name: By P. A. Carson, a surveyor of the Department of the Interior. A picturesque tarn on whose margin climbing parties may bivouac en route to Mt. Sir Sandford, noted above. Ponies can travel this far, going in from Six Mile Creek.
Surprise Creek—Name: By the C.P.R. Railway engineers. At this point a splendid view of Mt. Sir Donald, apparently blocking the Valley of the Beaver, suddenly greets and suprises the traveller. Location: Flows to Beaver River between Cedar Creek and Stony Creek; crossed by the railway 3½ miles northerly from Bear Creek Station; heads in an amphitheatre on the north-east flank of Mt. Shaughnessy.
Leaving Cedar Creek, travellers going west ought to keep one eye on the time table and another on the rapidly moving landscape, watching for that sudden first fine view of the Selkirk glaciers close above the Selkirk forests. The train, so obliging at other points of interest, might well pause here for a few moments or slacken its speed.
Swanzy, Mt.—Name: By Messrs. Abbott, Fay and Thompson, after the Rev. Henry Swanzy. W. S. Green's companion in the Selkirks on his expedition of 1888.
Altitude: 9,562 feet.
Location: The most easterly peak of the Bonney amphitheatre, at the head of Loop Brook, between Mt. Bonney and the Dome.
First Ascent: By A. Michel and Sidney Spenser.
