Clambering up a series of grassy slopes and rock ridges, and crossing a glacier, they encountered steep rocks which afforded interesting though cautious climbing. A steep ice-slope now blocked further progress, and had to be negotiated by cutting "deep steps into the blue ice, which was as hard as glass." An hour's hard work brought them to the rocks on the opposite side. A comparatively easy climb along the ridge finally conducted them to the summit. "The day," says Sulzer, "was perfectly clear. As far as the eye could see were innumerable mountain peaks all around. In the southern foreground the ice-girdled, central mass of the Selkirks, with its northern marking stone, the bold, fascinating Sir Donald, appeared especially beautiful. In the east, beyond the lower Selkirk peaks, the long row of haughty Rockies lay spread in partly rounded, partly broken shapes--a scene which I shall never forget. Sharply outlined, dark rock masses interchanged with lofty snow-tops; all showed clearly and glistened in the furthest distance, where, only fading, their faint outlines were lost in the horizon. The northern groups showed some particularly high peaks, and immense snow and ice-fields. Stately mountain chains in the west completed the scope." Herr Sulzer supposed the high peaks in the north to be Mount Brown and Mount Hooker, the famous peaks near the headwaters of the Athabaska which David Douglas the botanist estimated in 1827 to be between 16,000 and 17,000 feet in height, and which Professor A. P. Coleman of Toronto visited in 1893 and found to be about 9000 feet! In 1890, of course, they were still supposed to be the highest peaks in the Canadian Rockies, and many an ambitious mountain-climber hoped some day to stand upon their remote summits. As the reputed eminence of these now rather despised mountains was universally received for well-nigh three-quarters of a century, and is still recorded in a number of very respectable books of reference, it may not be without interest to quote Douglas's own account, as found in his Journal: "Being well rested by one o'clock," (he was then at the summit of Athabaska Pass), "I set out with the view of ascending what seemed to be the highest peak on the north. Its height does not appear to be less than sixteen thousand or seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea. After passing over the lower ridge I came to about 1200 feet of by far the most difficult and fatiguing walking I have ever experienced, and the utmost care was required to tread safely over the crust of snow.