Immediately in the route of the travellers lay a high mountain, which
they ascended with some difficulty. The prospect from the summit was
grand but disheartening. Directly before them towered the loftiest peaks
of Immahah, rising far higher than the elevated ground on which they
stood: on the other hand, they were enabled to scan the course of the
river, dashing along through deep chasms, between rocks and precipices,
until lost in a distant wilderness of mountains, which closed the savage
landscape.
They remained for a long time contemplating, with perplexed and anxious
eye, this wild congregation of mountain barriers, and seeking to
discover some practicable passage. The approach of evening obliged them
to give up the task, and to seek some camping ground for the night.
Moving briskly forward, and plunging and tossing through a succession of
deep snow-drifts, they at length reached a valley known among trappers
as the "Grand Rond," which they found entirely free from snow.
This is a beautiful and very fertile valley, about twenty miles long and
five or six broad; a bright cold stream called the Fourche de Glace,
or Ice River, runs through it. Its sheltered situation, embosomed in
mountains, renders it good pasturaging ground in the winter time; when
the elk come down to it in great numbers, driven out of the mountains by
the snow. The Indians then resort to it to hunt. They likewise come
to it in the summer time to dig the camash root, of which it produces
immense quantities.
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