One day Allen and I undertook an exploration trip to the snow-line. We started at daybreak, taking with us our guns, an abundant supply of ammunition, cameras, and a small parcel of lunch. We made straight for the head of the valley, passed the lake, and had soon reached the top of the weathered ridge that formed the first barrier to our progress. From the summit, fourteen thousand four hundred feet up, we could see numerous other isolated depressions like the one we had just left; in one of them was a newly made trench--probably the work of some venturesome miner who had drifted to this lonely place in search of gold. So far we had had not a glimpse of snow on account of the heavy mist. We followed along the top of a hogback running northward and gradually leading to higher country that flattened out into a marshy plateau on its farther end. Progress was difficult. At each step the bog quivered within a radius of several yards and the clumps of matted vegetation depressed by our weight were quickly covered with water that oozed from below. This was an ideal spot for snipe and several sprang up as we painfully picked our way over the treacherous ground; but the great exertion and high altitude had a demoralizing effect on our aim, with the result that we were relieved of a good deal of ammunition without securing a single bird in return. A high wall of bare rock rose just beyond the confines of the bog, and gaining the top of it we were up fifteen thousand feet. It was covered with blackened rock fragments--mostly the result of weathering, but some of them probably detached from the many towering crags and columns by the shattering force of lightning. The highest point in the wall is fifteen thousand two hundred feet. As we rested a moment to recover our breath, a procedure necessary every twenty steps, the fog suddenly lifted and disclosed the snow-bound slopes of Ruiz a short distance away. Between us lay a valley flanked by perpendicular walls of rock and hundreds of feet deep. The snow apparently extended down two hundred feet lower than our station, making its lower limit fifteen thousand feet. We stood lost in admiration at the marvellous spectacle that unfolded itself before us. The hurrying curtains of clouds revealed ever-changing scenes. One moment miles of slopes covered with a white mantle of snow stood out in bold relief; the next, they were whisked from view and bare pinnacles of dark rock, like the spires of a cathedral, appeared momentarily high above, their ragged outlines softened by a veil of thin blue haze. Again, the lower edges of the panorama came into view, revealing glaciers and avalanches of snow and rocks perched on the brink of the wall ready to plunge with a boom into the deep valley.