nuisance - even a danger, on steep slopes where footing was bad. Two running streams were crossed; one at beginning of the climb, the other in a very deep ravine. Where the latter is crossed, below a small waterfall, a huge "King-fern" (Angiopteris), with spreading massive fronds fully 15 ft. long, grows on the sloping granite which forms the bed of the stream. A visit from Kerns, senior, re ascent of mountain. Sunday, April 4 Working on collections and preparing for a start up Bellenden Ker early in the morning. Weather permitting (heavy showers off and on all today), George and I will make the trip with young Kerns as guide. Van will attend to trapping at foot of mountain. Geoff not yet in good enough physical shape for hard travel. Monday, April 5 - Wednesday, April 7 Bill Kerns Jr. and his friend, Swen Nielsen, turned up bright and early and we left camp at 7:35 A.M. A clear morning and for the first time since we have been camped at the foot of the mountain we saw one of the main peaks - the South Peak - exposed through the white clouds hanging over the summit ridge. Our packs were heavy. We had nothing with which to weigh them, but estimated their weight at about 30 lbs. Besides bread, canned meats, tea, sugar and butter, we each carried some collecting gear, one blanket and a change of clothing. David Abercrombie would not have approved of our packs, though we were rather proud of them. We spent a good part of Sunday afternoon fashing them from "Sugar Mixture" fertilizer sacks found in the barracks. There was nothing fancy about our guides or their equipment either. Both wore shorts and shirt. Bill had no hat, Swen no shoes. Bill carried his things in an old army pack, with ground sheet slung below it and held steady at his waist by a web belt. Swen had a 70 lb. sugar bag for a pack. Following grassy headlands of the cane fields, and going through six wire gates, we reached the edge of the rainforest and the foot of the mountain in about 15 minutes, wet to above the knees by the grass. The first 700 feet was hard going. Lawyer canes, and especially a climbing bamboo with hard green stems about an inch through, entangled open parts of the forest. Their sprawling stems, lying on or near the ground, made footing bad, and when out they came in sharp contact with shins and snagged our packs. After passing King-fern Gully, at 800 feet, we had settled down under our packs and got our second wind. The sky clouded over, the air got cooler, and we began to feel that we would make it. We traveled very slowly, resting about 5 or 10 minutes after every half hour of climbing. It seemed our guides rather expected us to crack up and have to be helped with our loads, as had Chauvel of M C Z, and other scientific men before us. At 11 o'clock we stopped to boil the billy and eat lunch at one of the gully heads of Junction Creek (1950 ft), the second water on the track. Leeches were particularly bad here. Swen's bare feet were a bloody mess by this time. Mist hung in the treetops, and as we shouldered our packs to go on at 12:20, rain began to fall.