Subalpine fir, whitebark pine, and Engelmann spruce do not relinquish easily their upward climb; where conditions become severe, their growth is retarded and their stature dwarfed. Deformed and pruned by wind, their leaders winter-killed when they outreach the protection of the winter snowpack, trees become shrubs, forced to hug the ground. Size belies age in these elfin forests, or krummholz, where the growing season is painfully brief and progress is always uncertain. A twisted, gnarled little bush, more snag than live branch, bearing a single cone or two, may be senior by a century to the giants of its race in the valley below, which yearly shower the ground with an abundant crop of cones. This time I will come from Goathaunt, passing Lakes Janet and Francis, reaching Brown Pass from the east, and camp in the spectacular garden between Brown and Boulder Passes. Meadows and rock slides break the forest as the trail gains elevation and distance through the valley. The spruce and fir thin out rapidly at the valley head, the trail climbing the grassy slope to low, broad Brown Pass. Below the pass is Thunderbird Pond, which receives the meltwater from a glacier high on a shelf of Thunderbird Mountain and is bordered by a low jungle of willow. In the water stands a bull moose, its heavy, fully formed antlers ready for the season’s impending business. I was hoping again to see Cassin’s finches and Audubon’s warblers on the pass; but the fir grove is quiet. Sitting down to rest and listen, I become aware of a strange silence. No birds sing or flit among the trees, no alarms pass back and forth among alert ground squirrels. There is no wind—an odd condition for the Continental Divide. This place seems to be holding its breath. High overhead, a veil of cirrus cloud arranges long spears across the sky. Moving off the pass, along the dome of Mt. Chapman, I experience anew the old excitement of this high country. Abruptly the gorge of Bowman valley opens up, revealing the twisting blue snake of Bowman Lake far down the narrow, cliff-imprisoned valley. Here again are the northern titans—Numa, Peabody, Boulder, Thunderbird, and Rainbow; and Carter, with its high glacier baring blue ice teeth to the sun. It is not the climb that makes your heart pound now; the trail is suddenly narrow and cliff-defiant, cut by the plunging waters of snowbanks far above. These are splendid peaks, unmatched in a land of muscled, brutal earth. Even the air seems to retain the scent of glacier work.