They were fortunate in having Indian guides with them; and the journal says:-- "The marks on the trees, which had been our chief dependence, are much fewer and more difficult to be distinguished than we had supposed.

But our guides traverse this trackless region with a kind of instinctive sagacity; they never hesitate, they are never embarrassed; and so undeviating is their step, that wherever the snow has disappeared, for even a hundred paces, we find the summer road.

With their aid the snow is scarcely a disadvantage; for though we are often obliged to slip down, yet the fallen timber and the rocks, which are now covered, were much more troublesome when we passed in the autumn.

Travelling is indeed comparatively pleasant, as well as more rapid, the snow being hard and coarse, without a crust, and perfectly hard enough to prevent the horses sinking more than two or three inches.

After the sun has been on it for some hours it becomes softer than it is early in the morning; yet they are almost always able to get a sure foothold." On the twenty-ninth of June the party were well out of the snows in which they had been imprisoned, although they were by no means over the mountain barrier that had been climbed so painfully during the past few days.