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diff --git a/26059.txt b/26059.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a85e732 --- /dev/null +++ b/26059.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4871 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley), by Hudson Stuck + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) + A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest + Peak in North America + +Author: Hudson Stuck + +Release Date: July 15, 2008 [EBook #26059] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASCENT OF DENALI *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Louise Blyton, Brian Janes +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE ASCENT OF DENALI + +(MOUNT McKINLEY) + +A NARRATIVE OF THE FIRST COMPLETE ASCENT OF THE +HIGHEST PEAK IN NORTH AMERICA + +BY + +HUDSON STUCK, D.D. + +ARCHDEACON OF THE YUKON + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +NEW YORK + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +1918 + + + + +[Illustration: Ice Fall of nearly four thousand feet, by which the upper +or Harper Glacier discharges into the lower or Muldrow Glacier (page +39)] + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + +Published February, 1914 + + + + + BOOKS BY HUDSON STUCK, D.D., F.R.G.S. + + PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + + + VOYAGES ON THE YUKON AND ITS TRIBUTARIES + + A Narrative of Summer Travel in the Interior of Alaska + Illustrated. 8vo _Net_ $4.50 + + "His book is a worthy contribution in a fascinating field of + natural and geographical science as well as an entertaining record + of highly expert and continually risky exploration." + + --_Phila. North American._ + + THE ASCENT OF DENALI (MT. MCKINLEY) + + Illustrated. 8vo _Net_ $1.75 + + "A wonderful record of indomitable pluck and endurance." + + --_Bulletin of the American Geographical Society._ + + "Its pages make one wish that all mountain climbers might be + archdeacons if their accounts might thus gain, in the interest of + happenings by the way, emotional vision and intellectual outlook." + + --_New York Times._ + + TEN THOUSAND MILES WITH A DOG SLED + + A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska + Illustrated. 8vo _Net_ $1.75 + + "One of the most fascinating and altogether satisfactory books of + travel which we have seen this year, or, indeed, any year." + + --_New York Tribune._ + + "This startlingly brilliant book."--_Literary Digest._ + + + + +TO + +SIR MARTIN CONWAY + +ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST TRAVELLERS AND CLIMBERS WHOSE FASCINATING +NARRATIVES HAVE KINDLED IN MANY BREASTS A LOVE OF THE GREAT HEIGHTS AND +A DESIRE TO ATTAIN UNTO THEM + +THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH RESPECT AND ADMIRATION + + + + +PREFACE + + +Forefront in this book, because forefront in the author's heart and +desire, must stand a plea for the restoration to the greatest mountain +in North America of its immemorial native name. If there be any prestige +or authority in such matter from the accomplishment of a first complete +ascent, "if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," the author +values it chiefly as it may give weight to this plea. + +It is now little more than seventeen years ago that a prospector +penetrated from the south into the neighborhood of this mountain, +guessed its height with remarkable accuracy at twenty thousand feet, +and, ignorant of any name that it already bore, placed upon it the name +of the Republican candidate for President of the United States at the +approaching election--William McKinley. No voice was raised in protest, +for the Alaskan Indian is inarticulate and such white men as knew the +old name were absorbed in the search for gold. Some years later an +officer of the United States army, upon a reconnoissance survey into the +land, passed around the companion peak, and, alike ignorant or careless +of any native name, put upon it the name of an Ohio politician, at that +time prominent in the councils of the nation, Joseph Foraker. So there +they stand upon the maps, side by side, the two greatest peaks of the +Alaskan range, "Mount McKinley" and "Mount Foraker." And there they +should stand no longer, since, if there be right and reason in these +matters, they should not have been placed there at all. + +To the relatively large Indian population of those wide regions of the +interior of Alaska from which the mountains are visible they have always +borne Indian names. The natives of the middle Yukon, of the lower three +hundred miles of the Tanana and its tributaries, of the upper Kuskokwim +have always called these mountains "Denali" (Den-ah'li) and "Denali's +Wife"--either precisely as here written, or with a dialectical +difference in pronunciation so slight as to be negligible. + +It is true that the little handful of natives on the Sushitna River, who +never approach nearer than a hundred miles to the mountain, have another +name for it. They call it _Traleika_, which, in their wholly different +language, has the same signification. It is probably true of every great +mountain that it bears diverse native names as one tribe or another, on +this side or on that of its mighty bulk, speaks of it. But the area in +which, and the people by whom, this mountain is known as Denali, +preponderate so greatly as to leave no question which native name it +should bear. The bold front of the mountain is so placed on the +returning curve of the Alaskan range that from the interior its snows +are visible far and wide, over many thousands of square miles; and the +Indians of the Tanana and of the Yukon, as well as of the Kuskokwim, +hunt the caribou well up on its foot-hills. Its southern slopes are +stern and forbidding through depth of snow and violence of glacial +stream, and are devoid of game; its slopes toward the interior of the +country are mild and amene, with light snowfall and game in abundance. + +Should the reader ever be privileged, as the author was a few years ago, +to stand on the frozen surface of Lake Minchumina and see these +mountains revealed as the clouds of a passing snow-storm swept away, he +would be overwhelmed by the majesty of the scene and at the same time +deeply moved with the appropriateness of the simple native names; for +simplicity is always a quality of true majesty. Perhaps nowhere else in +the world is so abrupt and great an uplift from so low a base. The +marshes and forests of the upper Kuskokwim, from which these mountains +rise, cannot be more than one thousand five hundred feet above the sea. +The rough approximation by the author's aneroid in the journey from the +Tanana to the Kuskokwim would indicate a still lower level--would make +this wide plain little more than one thousand feet high. And they rise +sheer, the tremendous cliffs of them apparently unbroken, soaring +superbly to more than twenty thousand and seventeen thousand feet +respectively: Denali, "the great one," and Denali's Wife. And the little +peaks in between the natives call the "children." It was on that +occasion, standing spellbound at the sublimity of the scene, that the +author resolved that if it were in his power he would restore these +ancient mountains to the ancient people among whom they rear their +heads. Savages they are, if the reader please, since "savage" means +simply a forest dweller, and the author is glad himself to be a savage a +great part of every year, but yet, as savages, entitled to name their +own rivers, their own lakes, their own mountains. After all, these +terms--"savage," "heathen," "pagan"--mean, alike, simply "country +people," and point to some old-time superciliousness of the city-bred, +now confined, one hopes, to such localities as Whitechapel and the +Bowery. + +There is, to the author's mind, a certain ruthless arrogance that grows +more offensive to him as the years pass by, in the temper that comes to +a "new" land and contemptuously ignores the native names of conspicuous +natural objects, almost always appropriate and significant, and overlays +them with names that are, commonly, neither the one nor the other. The +learned societies of the world, the geographical societies, the +ethnological societies, have set their faces against this practice these +many years past, and to them the writer confidently appeals. + + * * * * * + +This preface must bear a grateful acknowledgment to the most +distinguished of Alaskans--the man who knows more of Alaska than any +other human being--Peter Trimble Rowe, seventeen years bishop of that +immense territory, for the "cordial assent" which he gave to the +proposed expedition and the leave of absence which rendered it +possible--one more in a long list of kindnesses which have rendered +happy an association of nearly ten years. Nor can better place be found +for a tribute of gratitude to those who were of the little party: to Mr. +Harry P. Karstens, strong, competent, and resourceful, the real leader +of the expedition in the face of difficulty and danger; to Mr. Robert G. +Tatum, who took his share, and more than his share, of all toil and +hardship and was a most valuable colleague; to Walter Harper, +Indian-bred until his sixteenth year, and up to that time trained in not +much else than Henry of Navarre's training, "to shoot straight, to speak +the truth; to do with little food and less sleep" (though equal to an +abundance of both on occasion), who joyed in the heights as a +mountain-sheep or a chamois, and whose sturdy limbs and broad shoulders +were never weary or unwilling--to all of these there is heartfelt +affection and deep obligation. Nor must Johnny be forgotten, the Indian +boy who faithfully kept the base camp during a long vigil, and killed +game to feed the dogs, and denied himself, unasked, that others might +have pleasure, as the story will tell. And the name of Esaias, the +Indian boy who accompanied us to the base camp, and then returned with +the superfluous dogs, must be mentioned, with commendation for fidelity +and thanks for service. Acknowledgment is also made to many friends and +colleagues at the mission stations in the interior, who knew of the +purpose and furthered it greatly and held their tongues so that no +premature screaming bruit of it got into the Alaskan newspapers: to the +Rev. C. E. Betticher, Jr., particularly and most warmly. + +The author would add, perhaps quite unnecessarily, yet lest any should +mistake, a final personal note. He is no professed explorer or climber +or "scientist," but a missionary, and of these matters an amateur only. +The vivid recollection of a back bent down with burdens and lungs at the +limit of their function makes him hesitate to describe this enterprise +as recreation. It was the most laborious undertaking with which he was +ever connected; yet it was done for the pleasure of doing it, and the +pleasure far outweighed the pain. But he is concerned much more with men +than mountains, and would say, since "out of the fullness of the heart +the mouth speaketh," that his especial and growing concern, these ten +years past, is with the native people of Alaska, a gentle and kindly +race, now threatened with a wanton and senseless extermination, and +sadly in need of generous champions if that threat is to be averted. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + + I. PREPARATION AND APPROACH 3 + + II. THE MULDROW GLACIER 25 + + III. THE NORTHEAST RIDGE 53 + + IV. THE GRAND BASIN 80 + + V. THE ULTIMATE HEIGHT 92 + + VI. THE RETURN 117 + + VII. THE HEIGHT OF DENALI, WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE + READINGS ON THE SUMMIT AND DURING THE ASCENT 141 + + VIII. EXPLORATIONS OF THE DENALI REGION AND PREVIOUS + ATTEMPTS AT ITS ASCENT 157 + + IX. THE NAMES PLACED UPON THE MOUNTAIN BY THE AUTHOR 180 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Ice fall of nearly four thousand feet by which the + upper or Harper Glacier discharges into the lower + or Muldrow Glacier (photogravure) _Frontispiece_ + + FACING + PAGE + + The author and Mr. H. P. Karstens 4 + + Tatum, Esaias, Karstens, Johnny, and Walter, at the + Clearwater Camp 8 + + Striking across from the Tanana to the Kantishna 12 + + One of the abandoned mining towns in the Kantishna 14 + + Denali from the McKinley fork of the Kantishna River 16 + + Entering the range by Cache Creek 18 + + The base camp at about 4,000 feet on Cache Creek 20 + + Some heads of game killed at the base camp 22 + + The Muldrow Glacier. Karstens in the foreground 26 + + Ascension Day, 1913 30 + + Bridging a crevasse on the Muldrow Glacier 32 + + Hard work for dogs as well as men on the Muldrow Glacier 34 + + The Northeast Ridge shattered by the earthquake in July, 1912 48 + + Cutting a staircase three miles long in the ice of the + shattered ridge 52 + + The shattered Northeast Ridge 56 + + Camp at 13,000 feet on Northeast Ridge 60 + + A dangerous passage 64 + + The Upper Basin reached at last. Our camp at the + Parker Pass at 15,000 feet 72 + + Above all the range except Denali and Denali's Wife 76 + + Traverse under the cliffs of the Northeast Ridge to enter + the Grand Basin 82 + + First camp in the Grand Basin--16,000 feet, looking up 84 + + Second camp in the Grand Basin--looking down, 16,500 + feet 86 + + Third camp in the Grand Basin--17,000 feet, showing the + shattering of the glacier walls by the earthquake 88 + + The North Peak, 20,000 feet high 90 + + The South Peak from about 18,000 feet 94 + + The climbing-irons 98 + + Denali's Wife from the summit of Denali (photogravure) 102 + + Robert Tatum raising the Stars and Stripes on the highest + point in North America 104 + + The saying of the Te Deum 106 + + Beginning the descent of the ridge; looking down 4,000 + feet upon the Muldrow Glacier 122 + + Johnny Fred, who kept the base camp and fed the dogs + and would not touch the sugar 128 + + "Muk," the author's pet malamute 136 + + Approaching the range 164 + + Map showing route of the Stuck-Karstens expedition + to the summit of Mt. Denali (Mt. McKinley) _End of volume_ + + + + +THE ASCENT OF DENALI + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PREPARATION AND APPROACH + + +The enterprise which this volume describes was a cherished purpose +through a number of years. In the exercise of his duties as Archdeacon +of the Yukon, the author has travelled throughout the interior of +Alaska, both winter and summer, almost continuously since 1904. Again +and again, now from one distant elevation and now from another, the +splendid vision of the greatest mountain in North America has spread +before his eyes, and left him each time with a keener longing to enter +its mysterious fastnesses and scale its lofty peaks. Seven years ago, +writing in _The Spirit of Missions_ of a view of the mountain from the +Pedro Dome, in the neighborhood of Fairbanks, he said: "I would rather +climb that mountain than discover the richest gold-mine in Alaska." +Indeed, when first he went to Alaska it was part of the attraction which +the country held for him that it contained an unclimbed mountain of the +first class. + +Scawfell and Skiddaw and Helvellyn had given him his first boyish +interest in climbing; the Colorado and Canadian Rockies had claimed one +holiday after another of maturer years, but the summit of Rainier had +been the greatest height he had ever reached. When he went to Alaska he +carried with him all the hypsometrical instruments that were used in the +ascent as well as his personal climbing equipment. There was no definite +likelihood that the opportunity would come to him of attempting the +ascent, but he wished to be prepared with instruments of adequate scale +in case the opportunity should come; and Hicks, of London, made them +nine years ago. + +[Illustration: The author and Mr. H. P. Karstens.] + +[Sidenote: Members of the Party] + +Long ago, also, he had picked out Mr. Harry P. Karstens, of Fairbanks, +as the one colleague with whom he would be willing to make the attempt. +Mr. Karstens had gone to the Klondike in his seventeenth year, during +the wild stampede to those diggings, paying the expenses of the trip by +packing over the Chilkoot Pass, and had been engaged in pioneering and +in travel of an arduous and adventurous kind ever since. He had mined in +the Klondike and in the Seventy-Mile (hence his sobriquet of "The +Seventy-Mile Kid"). It was he and his partner, McGonogill, who broke the +first trail from Fairbanks to Valdez and for two years of difficulty and +danger--dogs and men alike starving sometimes--brought the mail +regularly through. When the stampede to the Kantishna took place, and +the government was dilatory about instituting a mail service for the +three thousand men in the camp, Karstens and his partner organized and +maintained a private mail service of their own. He had freighted with +dogs from the Yukon to the Iditarod, had run motor-boats on the Yukon +and the Tanana. For more than a year he had been guide to Mr. Charles +Sheldon, the well-known naturalist and hunter, in the region around the +foot-hills of Denali. With the full vigor of maturity, with all this +accumulated experience and the resourcefulness and self-reliance which +such experience brings, he had yet an almost juvenile keenness for +further adventure which made him admirably suited to this undertaking. + +Mr. Robert G. Tatum of Tennessee, just twenty-one years old, a postulant +for holy orders, stationed at the mission at Nenana, had been employed +all the winter in a determined attempt to get supplies freighted over +the ice, by natives and their dog teams, to two women missionaries, a +nurse and a teacher, at the Tanana Crossing. The steamboat had cached +the supplies at a point about one hundred miles below the mission the +previous summer, unable to proceed any farther. The upper Tanana is a +dangerous and difficult river alike for navigation and for ice travel, +and Tatum's efforts were made desperate by the knowledge that the women +were reduced to a diet of straight rabbits without even salt. The famine +relieved, he had returned to Nenana. The summer before he had worked on +a survey party and had thus some knowledge of the use of instruments. By +undertaking the entire cooking for the expedition he was most useful and +helpful, and his consistent courtesy and considerateness made him a very +pleasant comrade. + +Of the half-breed boy, Walter Harper, the author's attendant and +interpreter, dog driver in the winter and boat engineer in the summer +for three years previous, no more need be said than that he ran Karstens +close in strength, pluck, and endurance. Of the best that the mixed +blood can produce, twenty-one years old and six feet tall, he took +gleefully to high mountaineering, while his kindliness and invincible +amiability endeared him to every member of the party. + +The men were thus all volunteers, experienced in snow and ice, though +not in high-mountain work. But the nature of snow and ice is not +radically changed by lifting them ten or fifteen or even twenty thousand +feet up in the air. + +A volunteer expedition was the only one within the resources of the +writer, and even that strained them. The cost of the food supplies, the +equipment, and the incidental expenses was not far short of a thousand +dollars--a mere fraction of the cost of previous expeditions, it is +true, but a matter of long scraping together for a missionary. Yet if +there had been unlimited funds at his disposal--and the financial aspect +of the affair is alluded to only that this may be said--it would have +been impossible to assemble a more desirable party. + +Mention of two Indian boys of fourteen or fifteen, who were of great +help to us, must not be omitted. They were picked out from the elder +boys of the school at Nenana, all of whom were most eager to go, and +were good specimens of mission-bred native youths. "Johnny" was with the +expedition from start to finish, keeping the base camp while the rest of +the party was above; Esaias was with us as far as the base camp and then +went back to Nenana with one of the dog teams. + +[Sidenote: Methods of Approach] + +The resolution to attempt the ascent of Denali was reached a year and a +half before it was put into execution: so much time was necessary for +preparation. Almost any Alaskan enterprise that calls for supplies or +equipment from the outside must be entered upon at least a year in +advance. The plan followed had been adopted long before as the only wise +one: that the supplies to be used upon the ascent be carried by water as +near to the base of the mountain as could be reached and cached there in +the summer, and that the climbing party go in with the dog teams as near +the 1st March as practicable. Strangely enough, of all the expeditions +that have essayed this ascent, the first, that of Judge Wickersham in +1903, and the last, ten years later, are the only ones that have +approached their task in this natural and easy way. The others have all +burdened themselves with the great and unnecessary difficulties of the +southern slopes of the range. + +[Illustration: Tatum, Esaias, Karstens, Johnny and Walter, at the +Clearwater Camp.] + +It was proposed to use the mission launch _Pelican_, which has travelled +close to twenty thousand miles on the Yukon and its tributaries in the +six seasons she has been in commission, to transport the supplies up the +Kantishna and Bearpaw Rivers to the head of navigation of the latter, +when her cruise of 1912 was complete. But a serious mishap to the +launch, which it was impossible to repair in Alaska, brought her +activities for that season to a sudden end. So Mr. Karstens came down +from Fairbanks with his launch, and a poling boat loaded with food +staples, and, pushing the poling boat ahead, successfully ascended the +rivers and carefully cached the stuff some fifty miles from the base of +the mountain. It was done in a week or less. + +[Sidenote: Equipment] + +Unfortunately, the equipment and supplies ordered from the outside did +not arrive in time to go in with the bulk of the stuff. Although ordered +in February, they arrived at Tanana only late in September, just in time +to catch the last boat up to Nenana. And only half that had been ordered +came at all--one of the two cases has not been traced to this day. +Moreover, it was not until late the next February, when actually about +to proceed on the expedition, that the writer was able to learn what +items had come and what had not. Such are the difficulties of any +undertaking in Alaska, despite all the precautions that foresight may +dictate. + +The silk tents, which had not come, had to be made in Fairbanks; the +ice-axes sent were ridiculous gold-painted toys with detachable heads +and broomstick handles--more like dwarf halberds than ice-axes; and at +least two workmanlike axes were indispensable. So the head of an axe was +sawn to the pattern of the writer's out of a piece of tool steel and a +substantial hickory handle and an iron shank fitted to it at the +machine-shop in Fairbanks. It served excellently well, while the points +of the fancy axes from New York splintered the first time they were +used. "Climbing-irons," or "crampons," were also to make, no New York +dealer being able to supply them. + +One great difficulty was the matter of footwear. Heavy regulation-nailed +alpine boots were sent--all too small to be worn with even a couple of +pairs of socks, and therefore quite useless. Indeed, at that time there +was no house in New York, or, so far as the writer knows, in the United +States, where the standard alpine equipment could be procured. As a +result of the dissatisfaction of this expedition with the material sent, +one house in New York now carries in stock a good assortment of such +things of standard pattern and quality. Fairbanks was ransacked for +boots of any kind in which three or four pairs of socks could be worn. +Alaska is a country of big men accustomed to the natural spread of the +foot which a moccasin permits, but we could not find boots to our need +save rubber snow-packs, and we bought half a dozen pairs of them (No. +12) and had leather soles fastened under them and nailed. Four pairs of +alpine boots at eleven dollars a pair equals forty-four dollars. Six +pairs of snow-packs at five dollars equals thirty dollars. Leather soles +for them at three dollars equals eighteen dollars; which totalled +ninety-two dollars--entirely wasted. We found that moccasins were the +only practicable foot-gear; and we had to put _five_ pairs of socks +within them before we were done. But we did not know that at the time +and had no means of discovering it. + +All these matters were put in hand under Karstens's direction, while the +writer, only just arrived in Fairbanks from Fort Yukon and Tanana, made +a flying trip to the new mission at the Tanana Crossing, two hundred and +fifty miles above Fairbanks, with Walter and the dog team; and most of +them were finished by the time we returned. A multitude of small details +kept us several days more in Fairbanks, so that nearly the middle of +March had arrived before we were ready to make our start to the +mountain, two weeks later than we had planned. + +[Sidenote: Supplies] + +Karstens having joined us, we went down to the mission at Nenana +(seventy-five miles) in a couple of days, and there two more days were +spent overhauling and repacking the stuff that had come from the +outside. In the way of food, we had imported only erbswurst, seventy-two +four-ounce packages; milk chocolate, twenty pounds; compressed China tea +in tablets (a most excellent tea with a very low percentage of tannin), +five pounds; a specially selected grade of Smyrna figs, ten pounds; and +sugared almonds, ten pounds--about seventy pounds' weight, all +scrupulously reserved for the high-mountain work. + +For trail equipment we had one eight-by-ten "silk" tent, used for two +previous winters; three small circular tents of the same material, made +in Fairbanks, for the high work; a Yukon stove and the usual complement +of pots and pans and dishes, including two admirable large aluminum pots +for melting snow, used a number of years with great satisfaction. A +"primus" stove, borrowed from the _Pelican's_ galley, was taken along +for the high work. The bedding was mainly of down quilts, which are +superseding fur robes and blankets for winter use because of their +lightness and warmth and the small compass into which they may be +compressed. Two pairs of camel's-hair blankets and one sleeping-bag +lined with down and camel's-hair cloth were taken, and Karstens brought +a great wolf-robe, weighing twenty-five pounds, of which we were glad +enough later on. + +[Illustration: Striking across from the Tanana to the Kantishna.] + +[Sidenote: Start] + +Another team was obtained at the mission, and Mr. R. G. Tatum and the +two boys, Johnny and Esaias, joined the company, which, thus increased +to six persons, two sleds, and fourteen dogs, set out from Nenana across +country to the Kantishna on St. Patrick's day. + +Travelling was over the beaten trail to the Kantishna gold camp, one of +the smallest of Alaskan camps, supporting about thirty men. In 1906 +there was a wild stampede to this region, and two or three thousand +people went in, chiefly from the Fairbanks district. Town after town was +built--Diamond City, Glacier City, Bearpaw City, Roosevelt, McKinley +City--all with elaborate saloons and gambling-places, one, at least, +equipped with electric lights. But next summer the boom burst and all +the thousands streamed out. Gold there was and is yet, but in small +quantities only. The "cities" are mere collections of tumble-down huts +amongst which the moose roam at will. Interior Alaska has many such +abandoned "cities." The few men now in the district have placer claims +that yield a "grub-stake" as a sure thing every summer, and spend their +winters chiefly in prospecting for quartz. At Diamond City, on the +Bearpaw, lay our cache of grub, and that place, some ninety miles from +Nenana and fifty miles from the base of Denali, was our present +objective point. It was bright, clear weather and the trail was good. +For thirty miles our way lay across the wide flats of the Tanana Valley, +and this stage brought us to the banks of the Nenana River. Another day +of twenty-five miles of flats brought us to Knight's comfortable +road-house and ranch on the Toklat, a tributary of the Kantishna, the +only road-house this trail can now support. Several times during these +two days we had clear glimpses of the great mountain we were +approaching, and as we came out of the flat country, the "Sheephills," a +foot-hill range of Denali, much broken and deeply sculptured, rose +picturesquely before us. Our travel was now almost altogether on +"overflow" ice, upon the surface of swift streams that freeze solidly +over their riffles and shallows and thus deny passage under the ice to +the water of fountains and springs that never ceases flowing. So it +bursts forth and flows _over_ the ice with a continually renewing +surface of the smoothest texture. Carrying a mercurial barometer that +one dare not intrust to a sled on one's back over such footing is a +somewhat precarious proceeding, but there was no alternative, and many +miles were thus passed. Up the Toklat, then up its Clearwater Fork, then +up its tributary, Myrtle Creek, to its head, and so over a little divide +and down Willow Creek, we went, and from that divide and the upper +reaches of the last-named creek had fine, clear views not only of Denali +but of Denali's Wife as well, now come much nearer and looming much +larger. + +[Illustration: One of the abandoned mining towns in the Kantishna.] + +[Sidenote: The Faces of the Mountain] + +But here it may be stated once for all that the view which this face of +the mountains presents is never a satisfying one. The same is true in +even greater degree of the southern face, all photographs agreeing with +all travellers as to its tameness. There is only one face of the Denali +group that is completely satisfying, that is adequate to the full +picturesque potentiality of a twenty-thousand-foot elevation. The writer +has seen no other view, no other aspect of it, comparable to that of the +northwest face from Lake Minchumina. There the two mountains rise side +by side, sheer, precipitous, pointed rocks, utterly inaccessible, +savage, and superb. The rounded shoulders, the receding slopes and +ridges of the other faces detract from the uplift and from the dignity, +but the northwestern face is stark. + +One more run, of much the same character as the previous day, and we +were at Eureka, in the heart of the Kantishna country, on Friday, 21st +March, being Good Friday. + +We arrived there at noon and "called it a day," and spent the rest of it +in the devotions of that august anniversary. Easter eve took us to +Glacier City, and we lay there over the feast, gathering three or four +men who were operating a prospecting-drill in that neighborhood for the +first public worship ever conducted in the Kantishna camp. Ten miles +more brought us to Diamond City, on the Bearpaw, where we found our +cache of food in good condition save that the field-mice, despite all +precautions, had made access to the cereals and had eaten all the rolled +oats. + +Amongst the Kantishna miners, who were most kindly and generous in their +assistance, we were able to pick up enough large-sized moccasins to +serve the members of the party, and we wore nothing else at all on the +mountain. + +[Illustration: Denali from the McKinley fork of the Kantishna River. + +Showing the two peaks of the mountain, the one in the rear and to the +left (the South Peak) is the higher.] + +[Sidenote: Timber-Line] + +Our immediate task now lay before us. A ton and a half of supplies had +to be hauled some fifty miles across country to the base of the +mountain. Here the relaying began, stuff being taken ahead and cached at +some midway point, then another load taken right through a day's march, +and then a return made to bring up the cache. In this way we moved +steadily though slowly across rolling country and upon the surface of a +large lake to the McKinley Fork of the Kantishna, which drains the +Muldrow Glacier, down that stream to its junction with the Clearwater +Fork of the same, and up that fork, through its canyon, to the last +spruce timber on its banks, and there we made a camp in an exceedingly +pretty spot. The creek ran open through a break in the ice in front of +our tent; the water-ousels darted in and out under the ice, singing most +sweetly; the willows, all in bud, perfumed the air; and Denali soared +clear and brilliant, far above the range, right in front of us. Here at +the timber-line, at an elevation of about two thousand feet, was the +pleasantest camp of the whole excursion. During the five days' stay here +the stuff was brought up and carried forward, and a quantity of dry wood +was cut and advanced to a cache at the mouth of the creek by which we +should reach the Muldrow Glacier. + +It should be said that the short and easy route by which that glacier is +reached was discovered after much scouting and climbing by McGonogill +and Taylor in 1910, upon the occasion of the "pioneer" attempt upon the +mountain, of which more will be said by and by. The men in the Kantishna +camp who took part in that attempt gave us all the information they +possessed, as they had done to the party that attempted the mountain +last summer. There has been no need to make reconnoissance for routes +since these pioneers blazed the way: there is no other practicable route +than the one they discovered. The two subsequent climbing parties have +followed precisely in their footsteps up as far as the Grand Basin at +sixteen thousand feet, and it is the merest justice that such +acknowledgment be made. + +At our camp the Clearwater ran parallel with the range, which rose like +a great wall before us. Our approach was not directly toward Denali but +toward an opening in the range six or eight miles to the east of the +great mountain. This opening is known as Cache Creek. Passing the willow +patch at its mouth, where previous camps had been made, we pushed up the +creek some three miles more to its forks, and there established our base +camp, on 10th April, at about four thousand feet elevation. A few +scrubby willows struggled to grow in the creek bed, but the hills that +rose from one thousand five hundred to two thousand feet around us were +bare of any vegetation save moss and were yet in the main covered with +snow. Caribou signs were plentiful everywhere, and we were no more than +settled in camp when a herd appeared in sight. + +[Illustration: Entering the range by Cache Creek. + +The Muldrow Glacier flows between the peak in the background (Mt. +Brooks) and the ridge just below it.] + +[Sidenote: Game and Its Preparation] + +Our prime concern at this camp was the gathering and preserving of a +sufficient meat supply for our subsistence on the mountain. It was an +easy task. First Karstens killed a caribou and then Walter a +mountain-sheep. Then Esaias happened into the midst of a herd of caribou +as he climbed over a ridge, and killed three. That was all we needed. +Then we went to work preparing the meat. Why should any one haul canned +pemmican hundreds of miles into the greatest game country in the world? +We made our own pemmican of the choice parts of this tender, juicy meat +and we never lost appetite for it or failed to enjoy and assimilate it. +A fifty-pound lard-can, three parts filled with water, was set on the +stove and kept supplied with joints of meat. As a batch was cooked we +took it out and put more into the same water, removed the flesh from the +bones, and minced it. Then we melted a can of butter, added pepper and +salt to it, and rolled a handful of the minced meat in the butter and +moulded it with the hands into a ball about as large as a baseball. We +made a couple of hundred of such balls and froze them, and they kept +perfectly. When all the boiling was done we put in the hocks of the +animals and boiled down the liquor into five pounds of the thickest, +richest meat-extract jelly, adding the marrow from the bones. With this +pemmican and this extract of caribou, a package of erbswurst and a +cupful of rice, we concocted every night the stew which was our main +food in the higher regions. + +[Illustration: Some heads of game killed at the base camp.] + +[Sidenote: The Instruments] + +Here the instruments were overhauled. The mercurial barometer reading by +verniers to three places of decimals was set up and read, and the two +aneroids were adjusted to read with it. These two aneroids perhaps +deserve a word. Aneroid A was a three-inch, three-circle instrument, the +invention of Colonel Watkins, of the British army, of range-finder fame. +It seems strange that the advantage of the three-circle aneroid is so +little known in this country, for its three concentric circles give such +an open scale that, although this particular instrument reads to +twenty-five thousand feet, it is easy to read as small a difference as +twenty feet on it. It had been carried in the hind sack of the writer's +sled for the past eight winters and constantly and satisfactorily used +to determine the height of summits and passes upon the trails of the +interior. Aneroid B was a six-inch patent mountain aneroid, another +invention of the same military genius, prompted by Mr. Whymper's +experiments with the aneroid barometer after his return from his classic +climbs to the summits of the Bolivian Andes. Colonel Watkins devised an +instrument in which by a threaded post and a thumb-screw the spring may +be relaxed or brought into play at will, and the instrument is never in +commission save when a reading is taken. Then a few turns of the +thumb-screw bring the spring to bear upon the box, its walls expand +until the pressure of the spring equals the pressure of the atmosphere, +the reading is taken, and the instrument thrown out of operation +again--a most ingenious arrangement by which it was hoped to overcome +some of the persistent faults of elastic-chamber barometers. The writer +had owned this instrument for the past ten years, but had never +opportunity to test its usefulness until now. So, although it read no +lower than about fifteen inches, he took it with him to observe its +operation. Lastly, completing the hypsometrical equipment, was a +boiling-point thermometer, with its own lamp and case, reading to 165 +deg. by tenths of a degree. + +Then there were the ice-creepers or crampons to adjust to the +moccasins--terribly heavy, clumsy rat-trap affairs they looked, but they +served us well on the higher reaches of the mountain and are, if not +indispensable, at least most valuable where hard snow or ice is to be +climbed. The snow-shoes, also, had to be rough-locked by lashing a +wedge-shaped bar of hardwood underneath, just above the tread, and +screwing calks along the sides. Thus armed, they gave us sure footing on +soft snow slopes, and were particularly useful in ascending the glacier. +While thus occupied at the base camp, came an Indian, his wife and +child, all the way from Lake Minchumina, perhaps one hundred miles' +journey, to have the child baptized. It was generally known amongst all +the natives of the region that the enterprise was on foot, and +"Minchumina John," hoping to meet us in the Kantishna, and missing us, +had followed our trail thus far. It was interesting to speculate how +much further he would have penetrated: Walter thought as far as the +glacier, but I think he would have followed as far as the dogs could go +or until food was quite exhausted. + +[Illustration: The base camp at about 4,000 feet on Cache Creek. + +The Muldrow Glacier flows between the ridge in the background and the +peak just beyond it.] + +Meanwhile, the relaying of the supplies and the wood to the base camp +had gone on, and the advancing of it to a cache at the pass by which we +should gain the Muldrow Glacier. On 15th April Esaias and one of the +teams were sent back to Nenana. Almost all the stuff we should move was +already at this cache, and the need for the two dog teams was over. +Moreover, the trails were rapidly breaking up, and it was necessary for +the boy to travel by night instead of by day on his return trip. Johnny +and the other dog team we kept, because we designed to use the dogs up +to the head of the glacier, and the boy to keep the base camp and tend +the dogs, when this was done, until our return. So we said good-by to +Esaias, and he took out the last word that was received from us in more +than two months. + +[Sidenote: McPhee Pass] + +The photograph of the base camp shows a mountainous ridge stretching +across much of the background. That ridge belongs to the outer wall of +the Muldrow Glacier and indicates its general direction. Just beyond the +picture, to the right, the ridge breaks down, and the little valley in +the middle distance sweeps around, becomes a steep, narrow gulch, and +ends at the breach in the glacier wall. This breach, thus reached, is +the pass which the Kantishna miners of the "pioneer" expedition +discovered and named "McPhee Pass," after a Fairbanks saloon-keeper. The +name should stand. There is no other pass by which the glacier can be +reached; certainly none at all above, and probably no convenient one +below. Unless this pass were used, it would be necessary to make the +long and difficult journey to the snout of the glacier, some twenty +miles farther to the east, cross its rough terminal moraine, and +traverse all its lower stretch. + +On the 11th April Karstens and I wound our way up the narrow, steep +defile for about three miles from the base camp and came to our first +sight of the Muldrow Glacier, some two thousand five hundred feet above +camp and six thousand, three hundred feet above the sea. That day stands +out in recollection as one of the notable days of the whole ascent. +There the glacier stretched away, broad and level--the road to the heart +of the mountain, and as our eyes traced its course our spirits leaped up +that at last we were entered upon our real task. One of us, at least, +knew something of the dangers and difficulties its apparently smooth +surface concealed, yet to both of us it had an infinite attractiveness, +for it was the highway of desire. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE MULDROW GLACIER + + +Right opposite McPhee Pass, across the glacier, perhaps at this point +half a mile wide, rises a bold pyramidal peak, twelve thousand or +thirteen thousand feet high, which we would like to name Mount Farthing, +in honor of the memory of a very noble gentlewoman who died at the +mission at Nenana three years ago, unless, unknown to us, it already +bear some other name.[1] Walter and our two Indian boys had been under +her instruction. + +At the base of this peak two branches of the glacier unite, coming down +in the same general direction and together draining the snows of the +whole eastern face of the mountain. The dividing wall between them, +almost up to their head and termination, is one stupendous, well-nigh +vertical escarpment of ice-covered rock towering six thousand or seven +thousand feet above the glacier floor, the first of the very impressive +features of the mountain. The other wall of the glacier, through a +breach in which we reached its surface--the right-hand wall as we +journeyed up it--consists of a series of inaccessible cliffs deeply +seamed with snow gullies and crusted here and there with hanging +glaciers, the rock formation changing several times as one proceeds but +maintaining an unbroken rampart. + +Now, it is important to remember that these two ridges which make the +walls of the Muldrow Glacier rise ultimately to the two summits of the +mountain, the right-hand wall culminating in the North Peak and the +left-hand wall in the South Peak. And the glacier lies between the walls +all the way up and separates the summits, with this qualification--that +midway in its course it is interrupted by a perpendicular ice-fall of +about four thousand feet by which its upper portion discharges into its +lower. It will help the reader to a comprehension of the ascent if this +rough sketch be borne in mind. + +[Illustration: The Muldrow Glacier. Karstens in the foreground.] + +The course of the glacier at the point at which we reached it is nearly +northeast and southwest (magnetic); its surface is almost level and it +is free of crevasses save at its sides. For three or four miles above +the pass it pursues its course without change of direction or much +increase in grade; then it takes a broad sweep toward the south and +grows steep and much crevassed. Three miles farther up it takes another +and more decided southerly bend, receiving two steep but short +tributaries from the northwest at an elevation of about ten thousand +feet, and finishing its lower course in another mile and a half, at an +elevation of about eleven thousand five hundred feet, with an almost due +north and south direction (magnetic). + +A week after our first sight of the glacier, or on the 18th April, we +were camped at about the farthest point we had been able to see on that +occasion--just round the first bend. Our stuff had been freighted to the +pass and cached there; then, in the usual method of our advance, the +camp had been moved forward beyond the cache on to the glacier, a full +day's march. Then the team worked backward, bringing up the stuff to the +new camp. Thus three could go ahead, prospecting and staking out a trail +for further advance, while two worked with the dog team at the +freighting. + +[Sidenote: Crevasses] + +For the glacier difficulties now confronted us in the fullest degree. +Immediately above our tent the ice rose steeply a couple of hundred +feet, and at that level began to be most intricately crevassed. It took +several days to unravel the tangle of fissures and discover and prepare +a trail that the dogs could haul the sleds along. Sometimes a bridge +would be found over against one wall of the glacier, and for the next we +might have to go clear across to the other wall. Sometimes a block of +ice jammed in the jaws of a crevasse would make a perfectly safe bridge; +sometimes we had nothing upon which to cross save hardened snow. Some of +the gaps were narrow and some wide, yawning chasms. Some of them were +mere surface cracks and some gave hundreds of feet of deep blue ice with +no bottom visible at all. Sometimes there was no natural bridge over a +crevasse, and then, choosing the narrowest and shallowest place in it, +we made a bridge, excavating blocks of hard snow with the shovels and +building them up from a ledge below, or projecting them on the +cantilever principle, one beyond the other from both sides. Many of +these crevasses could be jumped across by an unencumbered man on his +snow-shoes that could not have been jumped with a pack and that the dogs +could not cross at all. As each section of trail was determined it was +staked out with willow shoots, hundreds of which had been brought up +from below. And in all of this pioneering work, and, indeed, +thenceforward invariably, the rope was conscientiously used. Every step +of the way up the glacier was sounded by a long pole, the man in the +lead thrusting it deep into the snow while the two behind kept the rope +always taut. More than one pole slipped into a hidden crevasse and was +lost when vigor of thrust was not matched by tenacity of grip; more than +once a man was jerked back just as the snow gave way beneath his feet. +The open crevasses were not the dangerous ones; the whole glacier was +crisscrossed by crevasses completely covered with snow. In bright +weather it was often possible to detect them by a slight depression in +the surface or by a faint, shadowy difference in tint, but in the +half-light of cloudy and misty weather these signs failed, and there was +no safety but in the ceaseless prodding of the pole. The ice-axe will +not serve--one cannot reach far enough forward with it for safety, and +the incessant stooping is an unnecessary added fatigue. + +[Sidenote: Heavy Hauling] + +For the transportation of our wood and supplies beyond the first glacier +camp, the team of six dogs was cut into two teams of three, each drawing +a little Yukon sled procured in the Kantishna, the large basket sled +having been abandoned. And in the movement forward, when the trail to a +convenient cache had been established, two men, roped together, +accompanied each sled, one ahead of the dogs, the other just behind the +dogs at the gee-pole. This latter had also a hauling-line looped about +his breast, so that men and dogs and sled made a unit. It took the +combined traction power of men and dogs to take the loads up the steep +glacial ascents, and it was very hard work. Once, "Snowball," the +faithful team leader of four years past, who has helped to haul my sled +nearly ten thousand miles, broke through a snow bridge and, the +belly-band parting, slipped out of his collar and fell some twenty feet +below to a ledge in a crevasse. Walter was let down and rescued the poor +brute, trembling but uninjured. Without the dogs we should have been +much delayed and could hardly, one judges, have moved the wood forward +at all. The work on the glacier was the beginning of the ceaseless grind +which the ascent of Denali demands. + +[Illustration: Ascension Day, 1913.] + +How intolerably hot it was, on some of these days, relaying the stuff up +the glacier! I shall never forget Ascension Day, which occurred this +year on the 1st May. Double feast as it was--for SS. Philip and James +falls on that day--it was a day of toil and penance. With the mercurial +barometer and a heavy pack of instruments and cameras and films on my +back and the rope over my shoulder, bent double hauling at the sled, I +trudged along all day, panting and sweating, through four or five inches +of new-fallen snow, while the glare of the sun was terrific. It seemed +impossible that, surrounded entirely by ice and snow, with millions of +tons of ice underfoot, it _could_ be so hot. But we took the loads right +through to the head of the glacier that day, rising some four thousand +feet in the course of five miles, and cached them there. On other days a +smother of mist lay all over the glacier surface, with never a breath of +wind, and the air seemed warm and humid as in an Atlantic coast city in +July. Yet again, starting early in the morning, sometimes a zero +temperature nipped toes and fingers and a keen wind cut like a knife. +Sometimes it was bitterly cold in the mornings, insufferably hot at +noon, and again bitterly cold toward night. It was a pity we had no +black-bulb, sun-maximum thermometer amongst our instruments, for one is +sure its readings would have been of great interest. + +It was a pity, also, that we had no means of making an attempt at +measuring the rate of movement of this glacier--a subject we often +discussed. The carriage of poles enough to set out rows of them across +the glacier would have greatly increased our loads and the time required +to transport them. But it is certain that its rate of movement is very +slow in general, though faster at certain spots than at others, and a +reason for this judgment will be given later. + +[Illustration: Bridging a crevasse on the Muldrow Glacier.] + +[Sidenote: The Fire on the Glacier] + +The midway cache between our first and last glacier camps was itself the +scene of a camp we had not designed, for on the day we were moving +finally forward we were too fatigued to press on to the spot that had +been selected at the head of the glacier, and by common consent made a +halt at the cache and set up the tent there. This is mentioned because +it had consequences. If we had gone through that day and had established +ourselves at the selected spot, a disaster that befell us would, in all +probability, not have happened; for the next day, instead of moving our +camp forward, we relayed some stuff and cached it where the camp would +be made, covering the cache with the three small silk tents. Then we sat +around awhile and ate our luncheon, and presently went down for another +load. Imagine our surprise, upon returning some hours later, to see a +column of smoke rising from our cache. All sorts of wild speculations +flew through the writer's mind as, in the lead that day, he first +crested the serac that gave view of the cache. Had some mysterious +climber come over from the other side of the mountain and built a fire +on the glacier? Had he discovered our wood and our grub and, perhaps +starving, kindled a fire of the one to cook the other? Was there really, +then, some access to this face of the mountain from the south? For it is +fixed in the mind of the traveller in the north beyond eradication that +_smoke_ must mean _man_. But ere we had gone much farther the truth +dawned upon us that our cache was on fire, and we left the dogs and the +sleds and hurried to the spot. Something we were able to save, but not +much, though we were in time to prevent the fire from spreading to our +far-hauled wood. And the explanation was not far to seek. After luncheon +Karstens and the writer had smoked their pipes, and one or the other had +thrown a careless match away that had fallen unextinguished upon the +silk tents that covered the cache. Presently a little wind had fanned +the smouldering fabric into flame, which had eaten down into the pile of +stuff below, mostly in wooden cases. All our sugar was gone, all our +powdered milk, all our baking-powder, our prunes, raisins, and dried +apples, most of our tobacco, a case of pilot bread, a sack full of +woollen socks and gloves, another sack full of photographic films--all +were burned. Most fortunately, the food provided especially for the +high-mountain work had not yet been taken to the cache, and our +pemmican, erbswurst, chocolate, compressed tea, and figs were safe. But +it was a great blow to us and involved considerable delay at a very +unfortunate time. We felt mortification at our carelessness as keenly as +we felt regret at our loss. The last thing a newcomer would dream of +would be danger from fire on a glacier, but we were not newcomers, and +we all knew how ever-present that danger is, more imminent in Alaska in +winter than in summer. Our carelessness had brought us nigh to the +ruining of the whole expedition. The loss of the films was especially +unfortunate, for we were thus reduced to Walter's small camera with a +common lens and the six or eight spools of film he had for it. + +[Illustration: Hard work for dogs as well as men on the Muldrow +Glacier.] + +[Sidenote: Camping Comfort] + +The next day the final move of the main camp was made, and we +established ourselves in the cirque at the head of the Muldrow Glacier, +at an elevation of about eleven thousand five hundred feet, more than +half-way up the mountain. After digging a level place in the glacier and +setting up the tent, a wall of snow blocks was built all round it, and a +little house of snow blocks, a regular Eskimo igloo, was built near by +to serve as a cache. Some details of our camping may be of interest. The +damp from the glacier ice had incommoded us at previous camps, coming up +through skins and bedding when the tent grew warm. So at this camp we +took further precaution. The boxes in which our grub had been hauled +were broken up and laid over the whole portion of the floor of the tent +where our bed was; over this wooden floor a canvas cover was laid, and +upon this the sun-dried hides of the caribou and mountain-sheep we had +killed were placed. There was thus a dry bottom for our bedding, and we +were not much troubled thenceforward by the rising moisture, although a +camp upon the ice is naturally always a more or less sloppy place. The +hides were invaluable; heavy as they were, we carried them all the way +up. + +So soon as we were thus securely lodged, elated when we thought of our +advance, but downcast when we recalled our losses, we set ourselves to +repair the damage of the fire so far as it was reparable. Walter and +Johnny must go all the way down to the base camp and bring up +sled-covers out of which to construct tents, must hunt the baggage +through for old socks and mitts, and must draw upon what grub had been +left for the return journey to the extreme limit it was safe to do so. + +Karstens, accustomed to be clean-shaven, had been troubled since our +first glacier camp with an affection of the face which he attributed to +"ingrowing whiskers," but when many hairs had been plucked out with the +tweezers and he was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse and the +inflammation spread to neck and temple, it was more correctly attributed +to an eczema, or tetter, caused by the glare of the sun. So he was not +loath to seclude himself for a few days in the tent while we set about +the making of socks and mitts from the camel's-hair lining of the +sleeping-bag. Walter's face was also very sore from the sun, his lips in +particular being swollen and blistered. So painful did they become that +I had to cut lip covers of surgeon's plaster to protect them. Then the +boys returned with the sorry gleanings of the base camp, and the +business of making two tents from the soiled and torn sled-covers and +darning worn-out socks and mittens, was put in hand. Our camp looked +like a sweat-shop those days, with its cross-legged tailormen and its +litter of snippets. In addition to the six-by-seven tent, three feet six +inches high, in which we were to live when we left the glacier, we made +a small, conical tent in which to read the instruments on the summit. +And all those days the sun shone in a clear sky! + +[Sidenote: Amber Glasses] + +Here, since reference has just been made to the effect of the sun's +glare on the face of one member of the party, it may be in place to +speak of the perfect eye protection which the amber snow-glasses +afforded us. Long experience with blue and smoke-colored glasses upon +the trail in spring had led us to expect much irritation of the eyes +despite the use of snow-glasses, and we had plentifully provided +ourselves with boracic acid and zinc sulphate for eye-washes. But the +amber glasses, with their yellow celluloid side-pieces, were not a mere +palliative, as all other glasses had been in our experience, but a +complete preventive of snow-blindness. No one of us had the slightest +trouble with the eyes, and the eye-washes were never used. It is hard +for any save men compelled every spring to travel over the dazzling +snows to realize what a great boon this newly discovered amber glass is. +There is no reason anywhere for any more snow-blindness, and there is no +use anywhere for any more blue or smoked glasses. The invention of the +amber snow-glass is an even greater blessing to the traveller in the +north than the invention of the thermos bottle. No test could be more +severe than that which we put these glasses to. + +We were now at the farthest point at which it was possible to use the +dogs, at our actual climbing base, and the time had come for Johnny and +the dogs to go down to the base camp for good. We should have liked to +keep the boy, so good-natured and amiable he was and so keen for further +climbing; but the dogs must be tended, and the main food for them was +yet to seek on the foot-hills with the rifle. So on 9th May down they +went, Tatum and the writer escorting them with the rope past the +crevasses as far as the first glacier camp, and then toiling slowly up +the glacier again, thankful that it was for the last time. That was one +of the sultriest and most sweltering days either of us ever remembered, +a moist heat of sun beating down through vapor, with never a breath of +breeze--a stifling, stewing day that, with the steep climb added, +completely exhausted and prostrated us. + +[Sidenote: The Great Ice-Fall] + +It is important that the reader should be able to see, in his mind's +eye, the situation of our camp at the head of the glacier, because to do +so is to grasp the simple orography of this face of the mountain, and to +understand the route of its ascent, probably the only route by which it +can be ascended. Standing beside the tent, facing in the direction we +have journeyed, the great highway of the glacier comes to an abrupt end, +a cul-de-sac. On the right hand the wall of the glacier towers up, with +enormous precipitous cliffs incrusted with hanging ice, to the North +Peak of the mountain, eight or nine thousand feet above us. About at +right angles to the end of the glacier, and four thousand feet above it, +is another glacier, which discharges by an almost perpendicular ice-fall +upon the floor of the glacier below.[2] The left-hand wall of the +glacier, described some pages back as a stupendous escarpment of +ice-covered rock, breaks rapidly down into a comparatively low ridge, +which sweeps to the right, encloses the head of the glacier, and then +rises rapidly to the glacier above, and still rises to form the +left-hand wall of that glacier, and finally the southern or higher peak +of the mountain. + +So the upper glacier separates the two great peaks of the mountain and +discharges at right angles into the lower glacier. And the walls of the +lower glacier sweep around and rise to form the walls of the upper +glacier, and ultimately the summits of the mountain. To reach the peaks +one must first reach the upper glacier, and the southern or left-hand +wall of the lower glacier, where it breaks down into the ridge that +encloses the head of the glacier, is the only possible means by which +the upper basin may be reached. This ridge, then, called by Parker and +Browne the Northeast Ridge (and we have kept that designation, though +with some doubt as to its correctness), presented itself as the next +stage in our climb. + +[Sidenote: Last Year's Earthquake] + +Now just before leaving Fairbanks we had received a copy of a magazine +containing the account of the Parker-Browne climb, and in that narrative +Mr. Browne speaks of this Northeast Ridge as "a steep but practicable +snow slope," and prints a photograph which shows it as such. To our +surprise, when we first reached the head of the glacier, the ridge +offered no resemblance whatever to the description or the photograph. +The upper one-third of it was indeed as described, but at that point +there was a sudden sharp cleavage, and all below was a jumbled mass of +blocks of ice and rock in all manner of positions, with here a pinnacle +and there a great gap. Moreover, the floor of the glacier at its head +was strewn with enormous icebergs that we could not understand at all. +All at once the explanation came to us--"the earthquake"! The +Parker-Browne party had reported an earthquake which shook the whole +base of the mountain on 6th July, 1912, two days after they had come +down, and, as was learned later, the seismographic instruments at +Washington recorded it as the most severe shock since the San Francisco +disturbance of 1906. There could be no doubt that the earthquake had +disrupted this ridge. The huge bergs all around us were not the normal +discharge of hanging glaciers as we had at first wonderingly supposed; +they were the incrustation of ages, maybe, ripped off the rocks and +hurled down from the ridge by this convulsion. It was as though, as soon +as the Parker-Browne party reached the foot of the mountain, the ladder +by which they had ascended and descended was broken up. + +[Illustration: The Northeast Ridge shattered by the earthquake in July, +1912. + +The earthquake cleavage is plainly shown half-way down the ridge in the +background. The Browne Tower is the uppermost point in the picture. The +Parker Pass is along its base.] + +What a wonderful providential escape these three men, Parker, Browne, +and La Voy had! They reached a spot within three or four hundred feet of +the top of the mountain, struggling gallantly against a blizzard, but +were compelled at last to beat a retreat. Again from their +seventeen-thousand-foot camp they essayed it, only to be enshrouded and +defeated by dense mist. They would have waited in their camp for fair +weather had they been provided with food, but their stomachs would not +retain the canned pemmican they had carried laboriously aloft, and they +were compelled to give up the attempt and descend. So down to the foot +of the mountain they went, and immediately they reached their base camp +this awful earthquake shattered the ridge and showered down bergs on +both the upper and lower glaciers. Had their food served they had +certainly remained above, and had they remained above their bodies would +be there now. Even could they have escaped the avalanching icebergs they +could never have descended that ridge after the earthquake. They would +either have been overwhelmed and crushed to death instantly or have +perished by starvation. One cannot conceive grander burial than that +which lofty mountains bend and crack and shatter to make, or a nobler +tomb than the great upper basin of Denali; but life is sweet and all men +are loath to leave it, and certainly never men who cling to life had +more cause to be thankful. + +The difficulty of our task was very greatly increased; that was plain at +a glance. This ridge, that the pioneer climbers of 1910 went up at one +march with climbing-irons strapped beneath their moccasins, carrying +nothing but their flagpole, that the Parker-Browne party surmounted in a +few days, relaying their camping stuff and supplies, was to occupy us +for three weeks while we hewed a staircase three miles long in the +shattered ice. + +[Sidenote: Glacier Movement] + +It was the realization of the earthquake and of what it had done that +convinced us that this Muldrow Glacier has a very slow rate of movement. +The great blocks of ice hurled down from above lay apparently just where +they had fallen almost a year before. At the points of sharp descent, at +the turns in its course, at the points where tributary glaciers were +received, the movement is somewhat more rapid. We saw some crevasses +upon our descent that were not in existence when we went up. But for the +whole stretch of it we were satisfied that a very few feet a year would +cover its movement. No doubt all the glaciers on this side of the range +are much more sluggish than on the other side, where the great +precipitation of snow takes place. + +We told Johnny to look for us in two weeks. It was thirty-one days ere +we rejoined him. For now began the period of suspense, of hope blasted +anew nearly every morning, the period of weary waiting for decent +weather. With the whole mountain and glacier enveloped in thick mist it +was not possible to do anything up above, and day after day this was the +condition, varied by high wind and heavy snow. From the inexhaustible +cisterns of the Pacific Ocean that vapor was distilled, and ever it rose +to these mountains and poured all over them until every valley, every +glacier, every hollow, was filled to overflowing. There seemed sometimes +to us no reason why the process should not go on forever. The situation +was not without its ludicrous side, when one had the grace to see it. +Here were four men who had already passed through the long Alaskan +winter, and now, when the rivers were breaking and the trees bursting +into leaf, the flowers spangling every hillside, they were deliberately +pushing themselves up into the winter still, with the long-expected +summer but a day's march away. + +The tedium of lying in that camp while snow-storm or fierce, high wind +forbade adventure upon the splintered ridge was not so great to the +writer as to some of the other members of the expedition, for there was +always Walter's education to be prosecuted, as it had been prosecuted +for three winters on the trail and three summers on the launch, in a +desultory but not altogether unsuccessful manner. An hour or two spent +in writing from dictation, another hour or two in reading aloud, a +little geography and a little history and a little physics made the day +pass busily. A pupil is a great resource. Karstens was continually +designing and redesigning a motor-boat in which one engine should +satisfactorily operate twin screws; Tatum learned the thirty-nine +articles by heart; but naval architecture and even controversial +divinity palled after a while. The equipment and the supplies for the +higher region were gone over again and again, to see that all was +properly packed and in due proportion. + +[Sidenote: The Language of Commerce] + +[Sidenote: "Talcum and Glucose"] + +As one handled the packages and read and reread the labels, one was +struck by the meagre English of merchandisers and the poor verbal +resources of commerce generally. A while ago business dealt hardly with +the word "proposition." It was the universal noun. Everything that +business touched, however remotely, was a "proposition." When last he +was "outside" the writer heard the Nicene creed described as a "tough +proposition"; the Vice-President of the United States as a "cold-blooded +proposition," and missionaries in Alaska generally as "queer +propositions." Now commerce has discovered and appropriated the word +"product" and is working it for all it is worth. The coffee in the can +calls itself a product. The compressed medicines from London direct you +to "dissolve one product" in so much water; the vacuum bottles inform +you that since they are a "glass product" they will not guarantee +themselves against breakage; the tea tablets and the condensed pea soup +affirm the purity of "these products"; the powdered milk is a little +more explicit and calls itself a "food product." One feels disposed to +agree with Humpty Dumpty, in "Through the Looking-Glass," that when a +word is worked as hard as this it ought to be paid extra. One feels that +"product" ought to be coming round on Saturday night to collect its +overtime. The zwieback amuses one; it is a West-coast "product," and +apparently "product" has not yet reached the West coast--it does not so +dignify itself. But it urges one, in great letters on every package, to +"save the end seals; they are valuable!" Walter finds that by gathering +one thousand two hundred of these seals he would be entitled to a +"rolled-gold" watch absolutely free! This zwieback was the whole stock +of a Yukon grocer purchased when the supply we ordered did not arrive. +The writer was reminded of the time when he bought several two-pound +packages of rolled oats at a little Yukon store and discovered to his +disgust that every package contained a china cup and saucer that must +have weighed at least a pound. One can understand the poor Indian being +thus deluded into the belief that he is getting his crockery for +nothing, but it is hard to understand how the "gift-enterprise" and +"premium-package" folly still survives amongst white people--and Indians +do not eat zwieback. What sort of people are they who will feverishly +purchase and consume one thousand two hundred packages of zwieback in +order to get a "rolled-gold" watch for nothing? A sack of corn-meal +takes one's eye mainly by the enumeration of the formidable processes +which the "product" inside has survived. It is announced proudly as +"degerminated, granulated, double kiln-dried, steam-ground"! But why, in +the name even of an adulterous and adulterating generation, should rice +be "coated with talcum and glucose," as this sack unblushingly +confesses? It is all very well to add "remove by washing"; that is +precisely what we shall be unable to do. It will take all the time and +fuel we have to spare to melt snow for cooking, when one little primus +stove serves for all purposes. When we leave this camp there will be no +more water for the toilet; we shall have to cleanse our hands with snow +and let our faces go. The rice will enter the pot unwashed and will +transfer its talcum and glucose to our intestines. Nor is this the case +merely on exceptional mountain-climbing expeditions; it is the general +rule during the winter throughout Alaska. It takes a long time and a +great deal of snow and much wood to produce a pot of water on the winter +trail. That "talcum-and-glucose" abomination should be taken up by the +Pure Food Law authorities. All the rice that comes to Alaska is so +labelled. The stomachs and bowels of dogs and men in the country are +doubtless gradually becoming "coated with talcum and glucose." + +[Sidenote: Sugar] + +It was during this period of hope deferred that we began to be entirely +without sugar. Perhaps by the ordinary man anywhere, certainly by the +ordinary man in Alaska, where it is the rule to include as much sugar as +flour in an outfit, deprivation of sugar is felt more keenly than +deprivation of any other article of food. We watched the gradual +dwindling of our little sack, replenished from the base camp with the +few pounds we had reserved for our return journey, with sinking hearts. +It was kept solely for tea and coffee. We put no more in the sour dough +for hot cakes; we ceased its use on our rice for breakfast; we gave up +all sweet messes. Tatum attempted a pudding without sugar, putting +vanilla and cinnamon and one knows not what other flavorings in it, in +the hope of disguising the absence of sweetness, but no one could eat it +and there was much jeering at the cook. Still it dwindled and dwindled. +Two spoonfuls to a cup were reduced by common consent to one, and still +it went, until at last the day came when there was no more. Our cocoa +became useless--we could not drink it without sugar; our consumption of +tea and coffee diminished--there was little demand for the second cup. +And we all began to long for sweet things. We tried to make a palatable +potation from some of our milk chocolate, reserved for the higher work +and labelled, "For eating only." The label was accurate; it made a +miserable drink, the milk taste entirely lacking, the sweetness almost +gone. We speculated how our ancestors got on without sugar when it was a +high-priced luxury brought painfully in small quantities from the +Orient, and assured one another that it was not a necessary article of +diet. At last we all agreed to Karstens's laconic advice, "Forget it!" +and we spoke of sugar no more. When we got on the ridge the chocolate +satisfied to some extent the craving for sweetness, but we all missed +the sugar sorely and continued to miss it to the end, Karstens as much +as anybody else. + +Our long detention here made us thankful for the large tent and the +plentiful wood supply. That wood had been hauled twenty miles and raised +nearly ten thousand feet, but it was worth while since it enabled us to +"weather out the weather" here in warmth and comparative comfort. The +wood no more than served our need; indeed, we had begun to economize +closely before we left this camp. + +We were greatly interested and surprised at the intrusion of animal life +into these regions totally devoid of any vegetation. A rabbit followed +us up the glacier to an elevation of ten thousand feet, gnawing the bark +from the willow shoots with which the trail was staked, creeping round +the crevasses, and, in one place at least, leaping such a gap. At ten +thousand feet he turned back and descended, leaving his tracks plain in +the snow. We speculated as to what possible object he could have had, +and decided that he was migrating from the valley below, overstocked +with rabbits as it was, and had taken a wrong direction for his purpose. +Unless the ambition for first ascents have reached the leporidae, this +seems the only explanation. + +At this camp at the head of the glacier we saw ptarmigan on several +occasions, and heard their unmistakable cry on several more, and once we +felt sure that a covey passed over the ridge above us and descended to +the other glacier. It was always in thick weather that these birds were +noticed at the glacier head, and we surmised that perhaps they had lost +their way in the cloud. + +But even this was not the greatest height at which bird life was +encountered. In the Grand Basin, at sixteen thousand five hundred feet, +Walter was certain that he heard the twittering of small birds familiar +throughout the winter in Alaska, and this also was in the mist. I have +never known the boy make a mistake in such matters, and it is not +essentially improbable. Doctor Workman saw a pair of choughs at +twenty-one thousand feet, on Nun Kun in the Himalayas. + +[Sidenote: Avalanches] + +Our situation on the glacier floor, much of the time enveloped in dense +mist, was damp and cold and gloomy. The cliffs around from time to time +discharged their unstable snows in avalanches that threw clouds of snow +almost across the wide glacier. Often we could see nothing, and the +noise of the avalanches without the sight of them was at times a little +alarming. But the most notable discharges were those from the great +ice-fall, and the more important of them were startling and really very +grand sights. A slight movement would begin along the side of the ice, +in one of the gullies of the rock, a little trickling and rattling. +Gathering to itself volume as it descended, it started ice in other +gullies and presently there was a roar from the whole face of the +enormous hanging glacier, and the floor upon which the precipitation +descended trembled and shook with the impact of the discharge. Dense +volumes of snow and ice dust rose in clouds thousands of feet high and +slowly drifted down the glacier. We had chosen our camping-place to be +out of harm's way and were really quite safe. We never saw any large +masses detached, and by the time the ice reached the glacier floor it +was all reduced to dust and small fragments. One does not recall in the +reading of mountaineering books any account of so lofty an ice-fall. + +[Illustration: Cutting a staircase three miles long in the ice of the +shattered ridge.] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] I have since learned that this mountain was named Mount Brooks by +Professor Parker, and so withdraw the suggested name. + +[2] See frontispiece. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE NORTHEAST RIDGE + + +Some of the photographs we succeeded in getting will show better than +any words the character of the ridge we had to climb to the upper basin +by. The lowest point of the ridge was that nearest our camp. To reach +its crest at that point, some three hundred feet above the glacier, was +comparatively easy, but when it was reached there stretched ahead of us +miles and miles of ice-blocks heaved in confusion, resting at insecure +angles, poised, some on their points, some on their edges, rising in +this chaotic way some 3,000 feet. Here one would have to hew steps up +and over a pinnacle, there one must descend again and cut around a great +slab. Our wisest course was to seek to reach the crest of the ridge much +further along, beyond as much of this ice chaos as possible. But it was +three days before we could find a way of approach to the crest that did +not take us under overhanging icebergs that threatened continually to +fall upon our heads, as the overhanging hill threatened Christian in the +"Pilgrim's Progress." At last we took straight up a steep gully, half of +it snow slope, the upper half ice-incrusted rock, and hewed steps all +the five hundred feet to the top. Here we were about half a mile beyond +the point at which we first attained the crest, with that half mile of +ice-blocks cut out, but beyond us the prospect loomed just as difficult +and as dangerous. We could cut out no more of the ridge; we had tried +place after place and could reach it safely at no point further along. +The snow slopes broke off with the same sharp cleavage the whole ridge +displayed two thousand five hundred feet above; there was no other +approach. + +[Sidenote: The Shattered Ridge] + +So our task lay plain and onerous, enormously more dangerous and +laborious than that which our predecessors encountered. We must cut +steps in those ice-blocks, over them, around them, on the sheer sides of +them, under them--whatever seemed to our judgment the best way of +circumventing each individual block. Every ten yards presented a +separate problem. Here was a sharp black rock standing up in a setting +of ice as thin and narrow and steep as the claws that hold the stone in +a finger-ring. That ice must be chopped down level, and then steps cut +all round the rock. It took a solid hour to pass that rock. Here was a +great bluff of ice, with snow so loose and at such a sharp angle about +it that passage had to be hewed up and over and down it again. On either +side the ridge fell precipitously to a glacier floor, with yawning +crevasses half-way down eagerly swallowing every particle of ice and +snow that our axes dislodged: on the right hand to the west fork of the +Muldrow Glacier, by which we had journeyed hither; on the left to the +east fork of the same, perhaps one thousand five hundred feet, perhaps +two thousand feet lower. At the gap in the ridge, with the ice gable on +the other side of it, the difficulty and the danger were perhaps at +their greatest. It took the best part of a day's cutting to make steps +down the slope and then straight up the face of the enormous ice mass +that confronted us. The steps had to be made deep and wide; it was not +merely one passage we were making; these steps would be traversed again +and again by men with heavy packs as we relayed our food and camp +equipage along this ridge, and we were determined from the first to take +no unnecessary risks whatever. We realized that the passage of this +shattered ridge was an exceedingly risky thing at best. To go along it +day after day seemed like tempting Providence. We were resolved that +nothing on our part should be lacking that could contribute to safety. +Day by day we advanced a little further and returned to camp. + +[Illustration: The shattered Northeast Ridge.] + +[Sidenote: The Hall of the Mountain King] + +The weather doubled the time and the tedium of the passage of this +ridge. From Whitsunday to Trinity Sunday, inclusive, there were only two +days that we could make progress on the ridge at all, and on one of +those days the clouds from the coast poured over so densely and +enveloped us so completely that it was impossible to see far enough +ahead to lay out a course wisely. On that day we toppled over into the +abyss a mass of ice, as big as a two-story house, that must have weighed +hundreds of tons. It was poised upon two points of another ice mass and +held upright by a flying buttress of wind-hardened snow. Three or four +blows from Karstens's axe sent it hurling downward. It passed out of our +view into the cloud-smother immediately, but we heard it bound and +rebound until it burst with a report like a cannon, and some days later +we saw its fragments strewn all over the flat two thousand feet below. +What a sight it must have been last July, when the whole ridge was +heaving, shattering, and showering down its bergs upon the glacier +floors! One day we were driven off the ridge by a high wind that +threatened to sweep us from our footholds. On another, a fine morning +gave place to a sudden dense snow-storm that sent us quickly below +again. Always all day long, while we were on that ridge, the distant +thunder of avalanches resounded from the great basin far above us, into +which the two summits of Denali were continually discharging their +snows. It sounded as though the King of Denmark were drinking healths +all day long to the salvoes of his artillery--that custom "more honored +in the breach than in the observance." From such fancy the mind passed +easily enough to the memory of that astonishing composition of Grieg's, +"In the Hall of the Mountain King," and, once recalled, the stately yet +staccato rhythm ran in one's ears continually. For if we had many days +of cloud and smother of vapor that blotted out everything, when a fine +day came how brilliant beyond all that lower levels know it was! From +our perch on that ridge the lofty peaks and massive ridges rose on every +side. As little by little we gained higher and higher eminence the view +broadened, and ever new peaks and ridges thrust themselves into view. We +were within the hall of the mountain kings indeed; kings nameless here, +in this multitude of lofty summits, but that elsewhere in the world +would have each one his name and story. + +And how eager and impatient we were to rise high enough, to progress far +enough on that ridge that we might gaze into the great basin itself from +which the thunderings came, the spacious hall of the two lords paramount +of all the mountains of the continent--the north and south peaks of +Denali! Our hearts beat high with the anticipation not only of gazing +upon it but of entering it and pitching our tent in the midst of its +august solitudes. To come down again--for there was as yet no spot +reached on that splintered backbone where we might make a camp--to pass +day after day in our tent on the glacier floor waiting for the bad +weather to be done that we might essay it again; to watch the +tantalizing and, as it seemed, meaningless fluctuations of the barometer +for encouragement; to listen to the driving wind and the swirling snow, +how tedious that was! + +[Sidenote: Camp on the Ridge] + +At last when we had been camped for three weeks at the head of the +glacier, losing scarce an hour of usable weather, but losing by far the +greater part of the time, when the advance party the day before had +reached a tiny flat on the ridge where they thought camp could be made, +we took a sudden desperate resolve to move to the ridge at any cost. All +the camp contained that would be needed above was made up quickly into +four packs, and we struck out, staggering under our loads. Before we +reached the first slope of the ridge each man knew in his heart that we +were attempting altogether too much. Even Karstens, who had packed his +"hundred and a quarter" day after day over the Chilkoot Pass in 1897, +admitted that he was "heavy." But we were saved the chagrin of +acknowledging that we had undertaken more than we could accomplish, for +before we reached the steep slope of the ridge a furious snow-storm had +descended upon us and we were compelled to return to camp. The next day +we proceeded more wisely. We took up half the stuff and dug out a +camping-place and pitched the little tent. Every step had to be +shovelled out, for the previous day's snow had filled it, as had +happened so many times before, and it took five and one-half hours to +reach the new camping-place. On Sunday, 25th May, the first Sunday after +Trinity, we took up the rest of the stuff, and established ourselves at +a new climbing base, about thirteen thousand feet high and one thousand +five hundred feet above the glacier floor, not to descend again until we +descended for good. + +We were now much nearer our work and it progressed much faster, although +as the ridge rose it became steeper and steeper and even more rugged and +chaotic, and the difficulty and danger of its passage increased. Our +situation up here was decidedly pleasanter than below. We had indeed +exchanged our large tent for a small one in which we could sit upright +but could not stand, and so narrow that the four of us, lying side by +side, had to make mutual agreement to turn over; our comfortable +wood-stove for the little kerosene stove; yet when the clouds cleared we +had a noble, wide prospect and there was not the sense of damp +immurement that the floor of the glacier gave. The sun struck our tent +at 4.30 A. M., which is nearly two and one-half hours earlier than we +received his rays below, and lingered with us long after our glacier +camp was in the shadow of the North Peak. Moreover, instead of being +colder, as we expected, it was warmer, the minimum ranging around zero +instead of around 10 deg. below. + +[Illustration: Camp at 13,000 feet on Northeast Ridge.] + +[Sidenote: Clouds and Climate] + +The rapidity with which the weather changed up here was a continual +source of surprise to us. At one moment the skies would be clear, the +peaks and the ridge standing out with brilliant definition; literally +five minutes later they would be all blotted out by dense volumes of +vapor that poured over from the south. Perhaps ten minutes more and the +cloud had swept down upon the glacier and all above would be clear +again; or it might be the vapor deepened and thickened into a heavy +snow-storm. Sometimes everything below was visible and nothing above, +and a few minutes later everything below would be obscured and +everything above revealed. + +This great crescent range is, indeed, our rampart against the hateful +humidity of the coast and gives to us in the interior the dry, windless, +exhilarating cold that is characteristic of our winters. We owe it +mainly to this range that our snowfall averages about six feet instead +of the thirty or forty feet that falls on the coast. The winds that +sweep northward toward this mountain range are saturated with moisture +from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean; but contact with the lofty +colds condenses the moisture into clouds and precipitates most of it on +the southern slopes as snow. Still bearing all the moisture their +lessened temperature will allow, the clouds pour through every notch and +gap in the range and press resolutely onward and downward, streaming +along the glaciers toward the interior. But all the time of their +passage they are parting with their moisture, for the snow is falling +from them continually in their course. They reach the interior, indeed, +and spread out triumphant over the lowlands, but most of their burden +has been deposited along the way. One is reminded of the government +train of mules from Fort Egbert that used to supply the remote posts of +the "strategic" telegraph line before strategy yielded to economy and +the useless line was abandoned. When the train reached the Tanana +Crossing it had eaten up nine-tenths of its original load, and only +one-tenth remained for the provisioning of the post. So these clouds +were being squeezed like a sponge; every saddle they pushed through +squeezed them; every peak and ridge they surmounted squeezed them; every +glacier floor they crept down squeezed them, and they reached the +interior valleys attenuated, depleted, and relatively harmless. + +[Sidenote: Aneroids] + +The aneroids had kept fairly well with the mercurial barometer and the +boiling-point thermometer until we moved to the ridge; from this time +they displayed a progressive discrepancy therewith that put them out of +serious consideration, and one was as bad as the other. Eleven thousand +feet seemed the limit of their good behavior. To set them back day by +day, like Captain Cuttle's watch, would be to depend wholly upon the +other instruments anyway, and this is just what we did, not troubling to +adjust them. They were read and recorded merely because that routine had +been established. Says Burns: + + "There was a lad was born in Kyle, + But whatna day o' whatna style, + I doubt it's hardly worth the while + To be sae nice wi' Robin." + +So they were just aneroids: aluminum cases, jewelled movements, +army-officer patented improvements, Kew certificates, import duty, and +all--just aneroids, and one was as bad as the other. Within their +limitations they are exceedingly useful instruments, but it is folly to +depend on them for measuring great heights. + +Perched up here, the constant struggle of the clouds from the humid +south to reach the interior was interesting to watch, and one readily +understood that Denali and his lesser companions are a prime factor in +the climate of interior Alaska. + +Day by day Karstens and Walter would go up and resume the finding and +making of a way, and Tatum and the writer would relay the stuff from the +camp to a cache, some five hundred feet above, and thence to another. +The grand objective point toward which the advance party was working was +the earthquake cleavage--a clean, sharp cut in the ice and snow of fifty +feet in height. Above that point all was smooth, though fearfully steep; +below was the confusion the earthquake had wrought. Each day Karstens +felt sure they would reach the break, but each day as they advanced +toward it the distance lengthened and the intricate difficulties +increased. More than once a passage painfully hewn in the solid ice had +to be abandoned, because it gave no safe exit, and some other passage +found. At last the cleavage was reached, and it proved the most ticklish +piece of the whole ridge to get around. Just below it was a loose snow +slope at a dangerous angle, where it seemed only the initial impulse was +needed for an avalanche to bear it all below. And just before crossing +that snow slope was a wall of overhanging ice beneath which steps must +be cut for one hundred yards, every yard of which endangered the climber +by disputing the passage of the pack upon his shoulders. + +[Illustration: A dangerous passage.] + +[Sidenote: The Primus Stove] + +Late in the evening of the 27th May, looking up the ridge upon our +return from relaying a load to the cache, we saw Karstens and Walter +standing, clear-cut, against the sky, upon the surface of the unbroken +snow _above_ the earthquake cleavage. Tatum and I gave a great shout of +joy, and, far above as they were, they heard us and waved their +response. We watched them advance upon the steep slope of the ridge +until the usual cloud descended and blotted them out. The way was clear +to the top of the ridge now, and that night our spirits were high, and +congratulations were showered upon the victorious pioneers. The next +day, when they would have gone on to the pass, the weather drove them +back. On that smooth, steep, exposed slope a wind too high for safety +beat upon them, accompanied by driving snow. That day a little accident +happened that threatened our whole enterprise--on such small threads do +great undertakings hang. The primus stove is an admirable device for +heating and cooking--superior, one thinks, to all the newfangled +"alcohol utilities"--but it has a weak point. The fine stream of +kerosene--which, under pressure from the air-pump, is impinged against +the perforated copper cup, heated to redness by burning alcohol, and is +thus vaporized--first passes through several convolutions of pipe within +the burner, and then issues from a hole so fine that some people would +not call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That +little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets +clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be +used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen +to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner +hole, and that is what happened to us. Without a special tool that we +did not possess, it is impossible to get at that burner to unscrew it, +and without unscrewing it the broken wire cannot be removed. Tatum and I +turned the stove upside down and beat upon it and tapped it, but nothing +would dislodge that wire. It looked remarkably like no supper; it looked +alarmingly like no more stove. How we wished we had brought the other +stove from the launch, also! Every bow on an undertaking of this kind +should have two strings. But when Karstens came back he went to work at +once, and this was one of the many occasions when his resourcefulness +was of the utmost service. With a file, and his usual ingenuity, he +constructed, out of the spoon-bowl of a pipe cleaner the writer had in +his pocket, the special tool necessary to grip that little burner, and +soon the burner was unscrewed and the broken wire taken out and the +primus was purring away merrily again, melting the water for supper. We +feel sure that we would have pushed on even had we been without fire. +The pemmican was cooked already, and could be eaten as it was, and one +does not die of thirst in the midst of snow; but calm reflection will +hardly allow that we could have reached the summit had we been deprived +of all means of cooking and heating. + +[Sidenote: Germless Air] + +On this ridge the dough refused to sour, and since our baking-powder was +consumed in the fire we were henceforth without bread. A cold night +killed the germ in the sour dough, and we were never again able to set +up a fermentation in it. Doubtless the air at this altitude is free from +the necessary spores or germs of ferment. Pasteur's and Tyndall's +experiments on the Alps, which resulted in the overthrow of the theory +of spontaneous generation, and the rehabilitation of the old dogma that +life comes only from life, were recalled with interest, but without much +satisfaction. We tried all sorts of ways of cooking the flour, but none +with any success. Next to the loss of sugar we felt the loss of bread, +and in the food longings that overtook us bread played a large part. + +On Friday, 30th May, the way had been prospected right up to the pass +which gives entrance to the Grand Basin; a camping-place had been dug +out there and a first load of stuff carried through and cached. So on +that morning we broke camp, and the four of us, roped together, began +the most important advance we had made yet. With stiff packs on our +backs we toiled up the steps that had been cut with so much pains and +stopped at the cache just below the cleavage to add yet further burdens. +All day nothing was visible beyond our immediate environment. Again and +again one would have liked to photograph the sensational-looking +traverse of some particularly difficult ice obstacle, but the mist +enveloped everything. + +Just before we reached the smooth snow slope above the range of the +earthquake disturbance lay one of the really dangerous passages of the +climb. + +[Sidenote: A Perilous Passage] + +It is easier to describe the difficulty and danger of this particular +portion of the ascent than to give a clear impression to a reader of +other places almost as hazardous. Directly below the earthquake cleavage +was an enormous mass of ice, detached from the cleavage wall. From +below, it had seemed connected with that wall, and much time and toil +had been expended in cutting steps up it and along its crest, only to +find a great gulf fixed; so it was necessary to pass along its base. Now +from its base there fell away at an exceedingly sharp angle, scarcely +exceeding the angle of repose, a slope of soft, loose snow, and the very +top of that slope where it actually joined the wall of ice offered the +only possible passage. The wall was in the main perpendicular, and +turned at a right angle midway. Just where it turned, a great mass +bulged out and overhung. This traverse was so long that with both ropes +joined it was still necessary for three of the four members of the party +to be on the snow slope at once, two men out of sight of the others. Any +one familiar with Alpine work will realize immediately the great danger +of such a traverse. There was, however, no avoiding it, or, at whatever +cost, we should have done so. Twice already the passage had been made by +Karstens and Walter, but not with heavy packs, and one man was always on +ice while the other was on snow. This time all four must pass, bearing +all that men could bear. Cautiously the first man ventured out, setting +foot exactly where foot had been set before, the three others solidly +anchored on the ice, paying out the rope and keeping it taut. When all +the first section of rope was gone, the second man started, and when, in +turn, his rope was paid out, the third man started, leaving the last man +on the ice holding to the rope. This, of course, was the most dangerous +part of this passage. If one of the three had slipped it would have been +almost impossible for the others to hold him, and if he had pulled the +others down, it would have been quite impossible for the solitary man on +the ice to have withstood the strain. When the first man reached solid +ice again there was another equally dangerous minute or two, for then +all three behind him were on the snow slope. The beetling cliff, where +the trail turned at right angles, was the acutely dangerous spot. With +heavy and bulky packs it was exceedingly difficult to squeeze past this +projection. Ice gives no such entrance to the point of the axe as hard +snow does, yet the only aid in steadying the climber, and in somewhat +relieving his weight on the loose snow, was afforded by such purchase +upon the ice-wall, shoulder high, as that point could effect. Not a word +was spoken by any one; all along the ice-wall rang in the writer's ears +that preposterous line from "The Hunting of the Snark"--"Silence, not +even a shriek!" It was with a deep and thankful relief that we found +ourselves safely across, and when a few minutes later we had climbed the +steep snow that lay against the cleavage wall and were at last upon the +smooth, unbroken crest of the ridge, we realized that probably the worst +place in the entire climb was behind us. + +Steep to the very limit of climbability as that ridge was, it was the +easiest going we had had since we left the glacier floor. The steps were +already cut; it was only necessary to lift one foot after the other and +set the toe well in the hole, with the ice-axe buried afresh in the snow +above at every step. But each step meant the lifting not only of oneself +but of one's load, and the increasing altitude, perhaps aggravated by +the dense vapor with which the air was charged, made the advance +exceedingly fatiguing. From below, the foreshortened ridge seemed only +of short length and of moderate grade, could we but reach it--a +tantalizingly easy passage to the upper glacier it looked as we chopped +our way, little by little, nearer and nearer to it. But once upon it, it +lengthened out endlessly, the sky-line always just a little above us, +but never getting any closer. + +[Sidenote: The Cock's Comb] + +Just before reaching the steepest pitch of the ridge, where it sweeps up +in a cock's comb,[3] we came upon the vestiges of a camp made by our +predecessors of a year before, in a hollow dug in the snow--an empty +biscuit carton and a raisin package, some trash and brown paper and +discolored snow--as fresh as though they had been left yesterday instead +of a year ago. Truly the terrific storms of this region are like the +storms of Guy Wetmore Carryl's clever rhyme that "come early and avoid +the _rush_." They will sweep a man off his feet, as once threatened to +our advance party, but will pass harmlessly over a cigarette stump and a +cardboard box; our tent in the glacier basin, ramparted by a wall of +ice-blocks as high as itself, we found overwhelmed and prostrate upon +our return, but the willow shoots with which we had staked our trail +upon the glacier were all standing. + +Long as it was, the slope was ended at last, and we came straight to the +great upstanding granite slabs amongst which is the natural +camping-place in the pass that gives access to the Grand Basin. We named +that pass the Parker Pass, and the rock tower of the ridge that rises +immediately above it, the most conspicuous feature of this region from +below, we named the Browne Tower. The Parker-Browne party was the first +to camp at this spot, for the astonishing "sourdough" pioneers made no +camp at all above the low saddle of the ridge (as it then existed), but +took all the way to the summit of the North Peak in one gigantic stride. +The names of Parker and Browne should surely be permanently associated +with this mountain they were so nearly successful in climbing, and we +found no better places to name for them. + +There is only one difficulty about the naming of this pass; strictly +speaking, it is not a pass at all, and the writer does not know of any +mountaineering term that technically describes it. Yet it should bear a +name, for it is the doorway to the upper glacier, through which all +those who would reach the summit must enter. On the one hand rises the +Browne Tower, with the Northeast Ridge sweeping away beyond it toward +the South Peak. On the other hand, the ice of the upper glacier plunges +to its fall. The upstanding blocks of granite on a little level shoulder +of the ridge lead around to the base of the cliffs of the Northeast +Ridge, and it is around the base of those cliffs that the way lies to +the midst of the Grand Basin. So the Parker Pass we call it and desire +that it should be named. + +[Illustration: The Upper Basin reached at last. Our camp at the Parker +Pass at 15,000 feet.] + +[Sidenote: Karstens Ridge] + +And while names are before us, the writer would ask permission to bestow +another. Having nothing to his credit in the matter at all, as the +narrative has already indicated, he feels free to say that in his +opinion the conquest of the difficulties of the earthquake-shattered +ridge was an exploit that called for high qualities of judgment and +cautious daring, and would, he thinks, be considered a brilliant piece +of mountaineering anywhere in the world. He would like to name that +ridge Karstens Ridge, in honor of the man who, with Walter's help, cut +that staircase three miles long amid the perilous complexities of its +chaotic ice-blocks. + +When we reached the Parker Pass all the world beneath us was shrouded in +dense mist, but all above us was bathed in bright sunshine. The great +slabs of granite were like a gateway through which the Grand Basin +opened to our view. + +The ice of the upper glacier, which fills the Grand Basin, came +terracing down from some four thousand feet above us and six miles +beyond us, with progressive leaps of jagged blue serac between the two +peaks of the mountain, and, almost at our feet, fell away with cataract +curve to its precipitation four thousand feet below us. Across the +glacier were the sheer, dark cliffs of the North Peak, soaring to an +almost immediate summit twenty thousand feet above the sea; on the left, +in the distance, was just visible the receding snow dome of the South +Peak, with its two horns some five hundred feet higher. The mists were +passing from the distant summits, curtain after curtain of gauze draping +their heads for a moment and sweeping on. + +We made our camp between the granite slabs on the natural camping site +that offered itself, and a shovel and an empty alcohol-can proclaimed +that our predecessors of last year had done the same. + +The next morning the weather had almost completely cleared, and the view +below us burst upon our eyes as we came out of the tent into the still +air. + +[Sidenote: Parker Pass] + +The Parker Pass is the most splendid coigne of vantage on the whole +mountain, except the summit itself. From an elevation of something more +than fifteen thousand feet one overlooks the whole Alaskan range, and +the scope of view to the east, to the northeast, and to the southeast is +uninterrupted. Mountain range rises beyond mountain range, until only +the snowy summits are visible in the great distance, and one knows that +beyond the last of them lies the open sea. The near-by peaks and ridges, +red with granite or black with shale and gullied from top to bottom with +snow and ice, the broad highways of the glaciers at their feet carrying +parallel moraines that look like giant tram-lines, stand out with vivid +distinction. A lofty peak, that we suppose is Mount Hunter, towers above +the lesser summits. The two arms of the Muldrow Glacier start right in +the foreground and reveal themselves from their heads to their junction +and then to the terminal snout, receiving their groaning tributaries +from every evacuating height. The dim blue lowlands, now devoid of snow, +stretch away to the northeast, with threads of stream and patches of +lake that still carry ice along their banks. + +And all this splendor and diversity yielded itself up to us at once; +that was the most sensational and spectacular feature of it. We went to +sleep in a smother of mist; we had seen nothing as we climbed; we rose +to a clear, sparkling day. The clouds were mysteriously rolling away +from the lowest depths; the last wisps of vapor were sweeping over the +ultimate heights. Here one would like to camp through a whole week of +fine weather could such a week ever be counted upon. Higher than any +point in the United States, the top of the Browne Tower probably on a +level with the top of Mount Blanc, it is yet not so high as to induce +the acute breathlessness from which the writer suffered, later, upon any +exertion. The climbing of the tower, the traversing to the other side of +it, the climbing of the ridge, would afford pleasant excursions, while +the opportunity for careful though difficult photography would be +unrivalled. Even in thick weather the clouds are mostly below; and their +rapid movement, the kaleidoscopic changes which their coming and going, +their thickening and thinning, their rising and falling produce, are a +never-failing source of interest and pleasure. The changes of light and +shade, the gradations of color, were sometimes wonderfully delicate and +charming. Seen through rapidly attenuating mist, the bold crags of the +icy ridge between the glacier arms in the foreground would give a soft +French gray that became a luminous mauve before it sprang into dazzling +black and white in the sunshine. In the sunshine, indeed, the whole +landscape was hard and brilliant, and lacked half-tones, as in the main +it lacked color; but when the vapor drew the gauze of its veil over it +there came rich, soft, elusive tints that were no more than hinted ere +they were gone. + +[Illustration: Above all the range except Denali and Denali's Wife.] + +[Sidenote: The Himalayas] + +Here, with nothing but rock and ice and snow around, nine thousand feet +above any sort of vegetation even in the summer, it was of interest to +remember that at the same altitude in the Himalayas good crops of barley +and millet are raised and apples are grown, while at a thousand feet or +so lower the apricot is ripened on the terrace-gardens. + +Karstens and Walter had brought up a load each on their reconnoissance +trip; four heavy loads had been brought the day before. There were yet +two loads to be carried up from the cache below the cleavage, and Tatum +and Walter, always ready to take the brunt of it, volunteered to bring +them. So down that dreadful ridge once more the boys went, while +Karstens and the writer prospected ahead for a route into the Grand +Basin. + +The storms and snows of ten or a dozen winters may make a "steep but +practicable snow slope" of the Northeast Ridge again. One winter only +had passed since the convulsion that disrupted it, and already the snow +was beginning to build up its gaps and chasms. All the summer through, +for many hours on clear days, the sun will melt those snows and the +frost at night will glaze them into ice. The more conformable ice-blocks +will gradually be cemented together, while the fierce winds that beat +upon the ridge will wear away the supports of the more egregious and +unstable blocks, and one by one they will topple into the abyss on this +side or on that. It will probably never again be the smooth, homogeneous +slope it has been; "the gable" will probably always present a wide +cleft, but the slopes beyond it, stripped now of their accumulated ice +so as to be unclimbable, may build up again and give access to the +ridge. + +The point about one thousand five hundred feet above the gable, where +the earthquake cleavage took place, will perhaps remain the crux of the +climb. The ice-wall rises forty or fifty feet sheer, and the broken +masses below it are especially difficult and precipitous, but with care +and time and pains it can be surmounted even as we surmounted it. And +wind and sun and storm may mollify the forbidding abruptness of even +this break in the course of time. + +[Sidenote: The Denali Problem] + +With the exception of this ridge, Denali is not a mountain that presents +special mountaineering difficulties of a technical kind. Its +difficulties lie in its remoteness, its size, the great distances of +snow and ice its climbing must include the passage of, the burdens that +must be carried over those distances. We estimated that it was twenty +miles of actual linear distance from the pass by which we reached the +Muldrow Glacier to the summit. In the height of summer its snow-line +will not be higher than seven thousand feet, while at the best season +for climbing it, the spring, the snow-line is much lower. Its climbing +is, like nearly all Alaskan problems, essentially one of transportation. +But the Northeast Ridge, in its present condition, adds all the spice of +sensation and danger that any man could desire. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[3] See illustration facing p. 40. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE GRAND BASIN + + +The reader will perhaps be able to sympathize with the feeling of +elation and confidence which came to us when we had surmounted the +difficulties of the ridge and had arrived at the entrance to the Grand +Basin. We realized that the greater and more arduous part of our task +was done and that the way now lay open before us. For so long a time +this point had been the actual goal of our efforts, for so long a time +we had gazed upward at it with hope deferred, that its final attainment +was accompanied with no small sense of triumph and gratification and +with a great accession of faith that we should reach the top of the +mountain. + +[Sidenote: Heat and Cold] + +The ice of the glacier that fills the basin was hundreds of feet beneath +us at the pass, but it rises so rapidly that by a short traverse under +the cliffs of the ridge we were able to reach its surface and select a +camping site thereon at about sixteen thousand feet. It was bitterly +cold, with a keen wind that descended in gusts from the heights, and the +slow movement of step-cutting gave the man in the rear no opportunity of +warming up. Toes and fingers grew numb despite multiple socks within +mammoth moccasins and thick gloves within fur mittens. + +From this time, during our stay in the Grand Basin and until we had left +it and descended again, the weather progressively cleared and brightened +until all clouds were dispersed. From time to time there were fresh +descents of vapor, and even short snow-storms, but there was no general +enveloping of the mountain again. Cold it was, at times even in the +sunshine, with "a nipping and an eager air," but when the wind ceased it +would grow intensely hot. On the 4th June, at 3 P. M., the thermometer +in the full sunshine rose to 50 deg. F.--the highest temperature recorded +on the whole excursion--and the fatigue of packing in that thin atmosphere +with the sun's rays reflected from ice and snow everywhere was most +exhausting. We were burned as brown as Indians; lips and noses split and +peeled in spite of continual applications of lanoline, but, thanks to +those most beneficent amber snow-glasses, no one of the party had the +slightest trouble with his eyes. At night it was always cold, 10 deg. +below zero being the highest minimum during our stay in the Grand Basin, +and 21 deg. below zero the lowest. But we always slept warm; with +sheep-skins and caribou-skins under us, and down quilts and camel's-hair +blankets and a wolf-robe for bedding, the four of us lay in that +six-by-seven tent, in one bed, snug and comfortable. It was disgraceful +overcrowding, but it was warm. The fierce little primus stove, pumped up +to its limit and perfectly consuming its kerosene fuel, shot out its +corona of beautiful blue flame and warmed the tight, tiny tent. The +primus stove, burning seven hours on a quart of coal-oil, is a little +giant for heat generation. If we had had two, so that one could have +served for cooking and one for heating, we should not have suffered from +the cold at all, but as it was, whenever the stew-pot went on the stove, +or a pot full of ice to melt, the heat was immediately absorbed by the +vessel and not distributed through the tent. But another primus stove +would have been another five or six pounds to pack, and we were "heavy" +all the time as it was. + +[Illustration: Traverse under the cliffs of the Northeast Ridge to enter +the Grand Basin.] + +[Sidenote: The Labor of Packing] + +Something has already been said about the fatigue of packing, and one +would not weary the reader with continual reference thereto; yet it is +certain that those who have carried a pack only on the lower levels +cannot conceive how enormously greater the labor is at these heights. As +one rises and the density of the air is diminished, so, it would seem, +the weight of the pack or the effect of the weight of the pack is in the +same ratio increased. We probably moved from three hundred to two +hundred and fifty pounds, decreasing somewhat as food and fuel were +consumed, each time camp was advanced in the Grand Basin. We could have +done with a good deal less as it fell out, but this we did not know, and +we were resolved not to be defeated in our purpose by lack of supplies. +But the packing of these loads, relaying them forward, and all the time +steeply rising, was labor of the most exhausting and fatiguing kind, and +there is no possible way in which it may be avoided in the ascent of +this mountain. To roam over glaciers and scramble up peaks free and +untrammelled is mountaineering in the Alps. Put a forty-pound pack on a +man's back, with the knowledge that to-morrow he must go down for +another, and you have mountaineering in Alaska. In the ascent of this +twenty-thousand-foot mountain every member of the party climbed at least +sixty thousand feet. It is this going down and doing it all over again +that is the heart-breaking part of climbing. + +[Illustration: First camp in the Grand Basin--16,000 feet, looking up.] + +It was in the Grand Basin that the writer began to be seriously affected +by the altitude, to be disturbed by a shortness of breath that with each +advance grew more distressingly acute. While at rest he was not +troubled; mere existence imposed no unusual burden, but even a slight +exertion would be followed by a spell of panting, and climbing with a +pack was interrupted at every dozen or score of steps by the necessity +of stopping to regain breath. There was no nausea or headache or any +other symptom of "mountain sickness." Indeed, it is hard for us to +understand that affection as many climbers describe it. It has been said +again and again to resemble seasickness in all its symptoms. Now the +writer is of the unfortunate company that are seasick on the slightest +provocation. Even rough water on the wide stretches of the lower Yukon, +when a wind is blowing upstream and the launch is pitching and tossing, +will give him qualms. But no one of the four of us had any such feeling +on the mountain at any time. Shortness of breath we all suffered from, +though none other so acutely as myself. When it was evident that the +progress of the party was hindered by the constant stops on my account, +the contents of my pack were distributed amongst the others and my load +reduced to the mercurial barometer and the instruments, and, later, to +the mercurial barometer alone. It was some mortification not to be able +to do one's share of the packing, but there was no help for it, and the +other shoulders were young and strong and kindly. + +[Sidenote: Tobacco] + +With some hope of improving his wind, the writer had reduced his smoking +to two pipes a day so soon as the head of the glacier had been reached, +and had abandoned tobacco altogether when camp was first made on the +ridge; but it is questionable if smoking in moderation has much or any +effect. Karstens, who smoked continually, and Walter, who had never +smoked in his life, had the best wind of the party. It is probably much +more a matter of age. Karstens was a man of thirty-two years, and the +two boys were just twenty-one, while the writer approached fifty. None +of us slept as well as usual except Walter--and nothing ever interferes +with his sleep--but, although our slumbers were short and broken, they +seemed to bring recuperation just as though they had been sound. We +arose fresh in the morning though we had slept little and light. + +On the 30th May we had made our camp at the Parker Pass; on the 2d June, +the finest and brightest day in three weeks, we moved to our first camp +in the Grand Basin. On the 3d June we moved camp again, out into the +middle of the glacier, at about sixteen thousand five hundred feet. + +Here we were at the upper end of one of the flats of the glacier that +fills the Grand Basin, the serac of another great rise just above us. +The walls of the North Peak grow still more striking and picturesque +here, where they attain their highest elevation. These granite ramparts, +falling three thousand feet sheer, swell out into bellying buttresses +with snow slopes between them as they descend to the glacier floor, +while on top, above the granite, each peak point and crest ridge is +tipped with black shale. How comes that ugly black shale, with the +fragments of which all the lower glacier is strewn, to have such lofty +eminence and granite-guarded distinction, as though it were the most +beautiful or the most valuable thing in the world? The McKinley Fork of +the Kantishna, which drains the Muldrow, is black as ink with it, and +its presence can be detected in the Tanana River itself as far as its +junction with the Yukon. It is largely soluble in water, and where +melting snow drips over it on the glacier walls below were great +splotches, for all the world as though a gigantic ink-pot had been +upset. + +[Illustration: Second camp in the Grand Basin--looking down, 16,500 +feet.] + +[Sidenote: The Flagstaff] + +While we sat resting awhile on our way to this camp, gazing at these +pinnacles of the North Peak, we fell to talking about the pioneer +climbers of this mountain who claimed to have set a flagstaff near the +summit of the North Peak--as to which feat a great deal of incredulity +existed in Alaska for several reasons--and we renewed our determination +that, if the weather permitted when we had reached our goal and ascended +the South Peak, we would climb the North Peak also to seek for traces of +this earliest exploit on Denali, which is dealt with at length in +another place in this book. All at once Walter cried out: "I see the +flagstaff!" Eagerly pointing to the rocky prominence nearest the +summit--the summit itself is covered with snow--he added: "I see it +plainly!" Karstens, looking where he pointed, saw it also, and, whipping +out the field-glasses, one by one we all looked, and saw it distinctly +standing out against the sky. With the naked eye I was never able to see +it unmistakably, but through the glasses it stood out, sturdy and +strong, one side covered with crusted snow. We were greatly rejoiced +that we could carry down positive confirmation of this matter. It was no +longer necessary for us to ascend the North Peak. + +The upper glacier also bore plain signs of the earthquake that had +shattered the ridge. Huge blocks of ice were strewn upon it, ripped off +the left-hand wall, but it was nowhere crevassed as badly as the lower +glacier, but much more broken up into serac. Some of the bergs presented +very beautiful sights, wind-carved incrustations of snow in cameo upon +their blue surface giving a suggestion of Wedgwood pottery. All tints +seemed more delicate and beautiful up here than on the lower glacier. + +On the 5th June we advanced to about seventeen thousand five hundred +feet right up the middle of the glacier. As we rose that morning slowly +out of the flat in which our tent was pitched and began to climb the +steep serac, clouds that had been gathering below swept rapidly up into +the Grand Basin, and others swept as rapidly over the summits and down +upon us. In a few moments we were in a dense smother of vapor with +nothing visible a couple of hundred yards away. Then the temperature +dropped, and soon snow was falling which increased to a heavy snow-storm +that raged an hour. We made our camp and ate our lunch, and by that time +the smother of vapor passed, the sun came out hot again, and we were all +simultaneously overtaken with a deep drowsiness and slept. Then out into +the glare again, to go down and bring up the remainder of the stuff, we +went, and that night we were established in our last camp but one. We +had decided to go up at least five hundred feet farther that we might +have the less to climb when we made our final attack upon the peak. So +when we returned with the loads from below we did not stop at camp, but +carried them forward and cached them against to-morrow's final move. + +[Illustration: Third camp in the Grand Basin--17,000 feet, showing the +shattering of the glacier walls by the earthquake. + +The rocks at the top of the picture are about 19,000 feet high and are +the highest rocks on the south peak of the mountain.] + +[Sidenote: Last Camp] + +On Friday, the 6th June, we made our last move and pitched our tent in a +flat near the base of the ridge, just below the final rise in the +glacier of the Grand Basin, at about eighteen thousand feet, and we were +able to congratulate one another on making the highest camp ever made in +North America. I set up and read the mercurial barometer, and when +corrected for its own temperature it stood at 15.061. The boiling-point +thermometer registered 180.5, as the point at which water boiled, with +an air temperature of 35 deg. It took one hour to boil the rice for +supper. The aneroids stood at 14.8 and 14.9, still steadily losing on +the mercurial barometer. I think that a rough altitude gauge could be +calculated from the time rice takes to boil--at least as reliable as an +aneroid barometer. At the Parker Pass it took fifty minutes; here it +took sixty. This is about the height of perpetual snow on the great +Himalayan peaks; but we had been above the perpetual snow-line for +forty-eight days. + +We were now within about two thousand five hundred feet of the summit +and had two weeks' full supply of food and fuel, which, at a pinch, +could be stretched to three weeks. Certain things were short: the +chocolate and figs and raisins and salt were low; of the zwieback there +remained but two and one-half packages, reserved against lunch when we +attacked the summit. But the meatballs, the erbswurst, the caribou +jelly, the rice, and the tea--our staples--were abundant for two weeks, +with four gallons of coal-oil and a gallon of alcohol. The end of our +painful transportation hither was accomplished; we were within one day's +climb of the summit with supplies to besiege. If the weather should +prove persistently bad we could wait; we could advance our parallels; +could put another camp on the ridge itself at nineteen thousand feet, +and yet another half-way up the dome. If we had to fight our way step by +step and could advance but a couple of hundred feet a day, we were still +confident that, barring unforeseeable misfortunes, we could reach the +top. But we wanted a clear day on top, that the observations we designed +to make could be made; it would be a poor success that did but set our +feet on the highest point. And we felt sure that, prepared as we were to +wait, the clear day would come. + +[Illustration: The North Peak, 20,000 feet high. + +Our last camp in the Grand Basin, at 18,000 feet: the highest camp ever +made in North America.] + +As so often happens when everything unpropitious is guarded against, +nothing unpropitious occurs. It would have been a wonderful chance, +indeed, if, supplied only for one day, a fine, clear day had come. But +supplied against bad weather for two or three weeks, it was no wonder at +all that the very first day should have presented itself bright and +clear. We had exhausted our bad fortune below; here, at the juncture +above all others at which we should have chosen to enjoy it, we were to +encounter our good fortune. + +[Sidenote: Breathlessness] + +But here, where all signs seemed to promise success to the expedition, +the author began to have fears of personal failure. The story of Mr. +Fitzgerald's expedition to Aconcagua came to his mind, and he recalled +that, although every other member of the party reached the summit, that +gentleman himself was unable to do so. In the last stage the difficulty +of breathing had increased with fits of smothering, and the medicine +chest held no remedy for blind staggers. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE ULTIMATE HEIGHT + + +We lay down for a few hours on the night of the 6th June, resolved to +rise at three in the morning for our attempt upon the summit of Denali. +At supper Walter had made a desperate effort to use some of our ten +pounds of flour in the manufacture of "noodles" with which to thicken +the stew. We had continued to pack that flour and had made effort after +effort to cook it in some eatable way, but without success. The sour +dough would not ferment, and we had no baking-powder. _Is_ there any way +to cook flour under such circumstances? But he made the noodles too +large and did not cook them enough, and they wrought internal havoc upon +those who partook of them. Three of the four of us were unwell all +night. The digestion is certainly more delicate and more easily +disturbed at great altitudes than at the lower levels. While Karstens +and Tatum were tossing uneasily in the bedclothes, the writer sat up +with a blanket round his shoulders, crouching over the primus stove, +with the thermometer at -21 deg. F. outdoors. Walter alone was at ease, +with digestive and somnolent capabilities proof against any invasion. It +was, of course, broad daylight all night. At three the company was +aroused, and, after partaking of a very light breakfast indeed, we +sallied forth into the brilliant, clear morning with not a cloud in the +sky. The only packs we carried that day were the instruments and the +lunch. The sun was shining, but a keen north wind was blowing and the +thermometer stood at -4 deg. F. We were rather a sorry company. Karstens +still had internal pains; Tatum and I had severe headaches. Walter was +the only one feeling entirely himself, so Walter was put in the lead and +in the lead he remained all day. + +[Illustration: The South Peak from about 18,000 feet. + +The ridge with two peaks in the background is shaped like a horseshoe, +and the highest point on the mountain is on another little ridge just +beyond, parallel with the ridge that shows, almost at the middle point +between the two peaks.] + +[Sidenote: Start to the Summit] + +[Sidenote: Cold] + +We took a straight course up the great snow ridge directly south of our +camp and then around the peak into which it rises; quickly told but +slowly and most laboriously done. It was necessary to make the traverse +high up on this peak instead of around its base, so much had its ice and +snow been shattered by the earthquake on the lower portions. Once around +this peak, there rose before us the horseshoe ridge which carries the +ultimate height of Denali, a horseshoe ridge of snow opening to the east +with a low snow peak at either end, the centre of the ridge soaring +above both peaks. Above us was nothing visible but snow; the rocks were +all beneath, the last rocks standing at about 19,000 feet. Our progress +was exceedingly slow. It was bitterly cold; all the morning toes and +fingers were without sensation, kick them and beat them as we would. We +were all clad in full winter hand and foot gear--more gear than had +sufficed at 50 deg. below zero on the Yukon trail. Within the writer's +No. 16 moccasins were three pairs of heavy hand-knitted woollen socks, +two pairs of camel's-hair socks, and a pair of thick felt socks; while +underneath them, between them and the iron "creepers," were the soles +cut from a pair of felt shoes. Upon his hands were a pair of the +thickest Scotch wool gloves, thrust inside huge lynx-paw mitts lined +with Hudson Bay duffle. His moose-hide breeches and shirt, worn all the +winter on the trail, were worn throughout this climb; over the shirt was +a thick sweater and over all the usual Alaskan "parkee" amply furred +around the hood; underneath was a suit of the heaviest Jaeger +underwear--yet until nigh noon feet were like lumps of iron and fingers +were constantly numb. That north wind was cruelly cold, and there can be +no possible question that cold is felt much more keenly in the thin air +of nineteen thousand feet than it is below. But the north wind was +really our friend, for nothing but a north wind will drive all vapor +from this mountain. Karstens beat his feet so violently and so +continually against the hard snow to restore the circulation that two of +his toe-nails sloughed off afterward. By eleven o'clock we had been +climbing for six hours and were well around the peak, advancing toward +the horseshoe ridge, but even then there were grave doubts if we should +succeed in reaching it that day, it was so cold. A hint from any member +of the party that his feet were actually freezing--a hint expected all +along--would have sent us all back. When there is no sensation left in +the feet at all it is, however, difficult to be quite sure if they be +actually freezing or not--and each one was willing to give the attempt +upon the summit the benefit of the doubt. What should we have done with +the ordinary leather climbing boots? But once entirely around the peak +we were in a measure sheltered from the north wind, and the sun full +upon us gave more warmth. It was hereabouts, and not, surely, at the +point indicated in the photograph in Mr. Belmore Browne's book, that the +climbing party of last year was driven back by the blizzard that +descended upon them when close to their goal. Not until we had stopped +for lunch and had drunk the scalding tea from the thermos bottles, did +we all begin to have confidence that this day would see the completion +of the ascent. But the writer's shortness of breath became more and more +distressing as he rose. The familiar fits of panting took a more acute +form; at such times everything would turn black before his eyes and he +would choke and gasp and seem unable to get breath at all. Yet a few +moments' rest restored him completely, to struggle on another twenty or +thirty paces and to sink gasping upon the snow again. All were more +affected in the breathing than they had been at any time before--it was +curious to see every man's mouth open for breathing--but none of the +others in this distressing way. Before the traverse around the peak just +mentioned, Walter had noticed the writer's growing discomfort and had +insisted upon assuming the mercurial barometer. The boy's eager kindness +was gladly accepted and the instrument was surrendered. So it did not +fall to the writer's credit to carry the thing to the top as he had +wished. + +[Sidenote: Climbing-Irons] + +The climbing grew steeper and steeper; the slope that had looked easy +from below now seemed to shoot straight up. For the most part the +climbing-irons gave us sufficient footing, but here and there we came to +softer snow, where they would not take sufficient hold and we had to cut +steps. The calks in these climbing-irons were about an inch and a +quarter long; we wished they had been two inches. The creepers are a +great advantage in the matter of speed, but they need long points. They +are not so safe as step-cutting, and there is the ever-present danger +that unless one is exceedingly careful one will step upon the rope with +them and their sharp calks sever some of the strands. They were, +however, of great assistance and saved a deal of laborious step-cutting. + +At last the crest of the ridge was reached and we stood well above the +two peaks that mark the ends of the horseshoe.[4] + +Also it was evident that we were well above the great North Peak across +the Grand Basin. Its crest had been like an index on the snow beside us +as we climbed, and we stopped for a few moments when it seemed that we +were level with it. We judged it to be about five hundred feet lower +than the South Peak. + +[Illustration: The climbing-irons.] + +But still there stretched ahead of us, and perhaps one hundred feet +above us, another small ridge with a north and south pair of little +haycock summits. This is the real top of Denali. From below, this +ultimate ridge merges indistinguishably with the crest of the horseshoe +ridge, but it is not a part of it but a culminating ridge beyond it. +With keen excitement we pushed on. Walter, who had been in the lead all +day, was the first to scramble up; a native Alaskan, he is the first +human being to set foot upon the top of Alaska's great mountain, and he +had well earned the lifelong distinction. Karstens and Tatum were hard +upon his heels, but the last man on the rope, in his enthusiasm and +excitement somewhat overpassing his narrow wind margin, had almost to be +hauled up the last few feet, and fell unconscious for a moment upon the +floor of the little snow basin that occupies the top of the mountain. +This, then, is the actual summit, a little crater-like snow basin, sixty +or sixty-five feet long and twenty to twenty-five feet wide, with a +haycock of snow at either end--the south one a little higher than the +north. On the southwest this little basin is much corniced, and the +whole thing looked as though every severe storm might somewhat change +its shape. + +So soon as wind was recovered we shook hands all round and a brief +prayer of thanksgiving to Almighty God was said, that He had granted us +our hearts' desire and brought us safely to the top of His great +mountain. + +[Sidenote: The Instrument Readings] + +This prime duty done, we fell at once to our scientific tasks. The +instrument-tent was set up, the mercurial barometer, taken out of its +leather case and then out of its wooden case, was swung upon its tripod +and a rough zero established, and it was left awhile to adjust itself to +conditions before a reading was attempted. It was a great gratification +to get it to the top uninjured. The boiling-point apparatus was put +together and its candle lighted under the ice which filled its little +cistern. The three-inch, three-circle aneroid was read at once at +thirteen and two-tenths inches, its mendacious altitude scale +confidently pointing at twenty-three thousand three hundred feet. Half +an hour later it had dropped to 13.175 inches and had shot us up another +one hundred feet into the air. Soon the water was boiling in the little +tubes of the boiling-point thermometer and the steam pouring out of the +vent. The thread of mercury rose to 174.9 deg. and stayed there. There +is something definite and uncompromising about the boiling-point +hypsometer; no tapping will make it rise or fall; it reaches its mark +unmistakably and does not budge. The reading of the mercurial barometer +is a slower and more delicate business. It takes a good light and a good +sight to tell when the ivory zero-point is exactly touching the surface +of the mercury in the cistern; it takes care and precision to get the +vernier exactly level with the top of the column. It was read, some +half-hour after it was set up, at 13.617 inches. The alcohol minimum +thermometer stood at 7 deg. F. all the while we were on top. Meanwhile, +Tatum had been reading a round of angles with the prismatic compass. He +could not handle it with sufficient exactness with his mitts on, and he +froze his fingers doing it barehanded. + +[Sidenote: The View] + +The scientific work accomplished, then and not till then did we indulge +ourselves in the wonderful prospect that stretched around us. It was a +perfectly clear day, the sun shining brightly in the sky, and naught +bounded our view save the natural limitations of vision. Immediately +before us, in the direction in which we had climbed, lay--nothing: a +void, a sheer gulf many thousands of feet deep, and one shrank back +instinctively from the little parapet of the snow basin when one had +glanced at the awful profundity. Across the gulf, about three thousand +feet beneath us and fifteen or twenty miles away, sprang most splendidly +into view the great mass of Denali's Wife, or Mount Foraker, as some +white men misname her, filling majestically all the middle distance. It +was our first glimpse of her during the whole ascent. Denali's Wife does +not appear at all save from the actual summit of Denali, for she is +completely hidden by his South Peak until the moment when his South Peak +is surmounted. And never was nobler sight displayed to man than that +great, isolated mountain spread out completely, with all its spurs and +ridges, its cliffs and its glaciers, lofty and mighty and yet far +beneath us. On that spot one understood why the view of Denali from Lake +Minchumina is the grand view, for the west face drops abruptly down with +nothing but that vast void from the top to nigh the bottom of the +mountain. Beyond stretched, blue and vague to the southwest, the wide +valley of the Kuskokwim, with an end of all mountains. To the north we +looked right over the North Peak to the foot-hills below, patched with +lakes and lingering snow, glittering with streams. We had hoped to see +the junction of the Yukon and Tanana Rivers, one hundred and fifty miles +away to the northwest, as we had often and often seen the summit of +Denali from that point in the winter, but the haze that almost always +qualifies a fine summer day inhibited that stretch of vision. Perhaps +the forest-fires we found raging on the Tanana River were already +beginning to foul the northern sky. + +[Illustration: Denali's Wife from the summit of Denali] + +It was, however, to the south and the east that the most marvellous +prospect opened before us. What infinite tangle of mountain ranges +filled the whole scene, until gray sky, gray mountain, and gray sea +merged in the ultimate distance! The near-by peaks and ridges stood out +with dazzling distinction, the glaciation, the drainage, the relation of +each part to the others all revealed. The snow-covered tops of the +remoter peaks, dwindling and fading, rose to our view as though floating +in thin air when their bases were hidden by the haze, and the beautiful +crescent curve of the whole Alaskan range exhibited itself from Denali +to the sea. To the right hand the glittering, tiny threads of streams +draining the mountain range into the Chulitna and Sushitna Rivers, and +so to Cook's Inlet and the Pacific Ocean, spread themselves out; to the +left the affluents of the Kantishna and the Nenana drained the range +into the Yukon and Bering Sea. + +Yet the chief impression was not of our connection with the earth so far +below, its rivers and its seas, but rather of detachment from it. We +seemed alone upon a dead world, as dead as the mountains on the moon. +Only once before can the writer remember a similar feeling of being +neither in the world nor of the world, and that was at the bottom of the +Grand Canyon of the Colorado, in Arizona, its savage granite walls as +dead as this savage peak of ice. + +[Sidenote: The Dark Sky] + +Above us the sky took a blue so deep that none of us had ever gazed upon +a midday sky like it before. It was a deep, rich, lustrous, transparent +blue, as dark as a Prussian blue, but intensely blue; a hue so strange, +so increasingly impressive, that to one at least it "seemed like special +news of God," as a new poet sings. We first noticed the darkening tint +of the upper sky in the Grand Basin, and it deepened as we rose. Tyndall +observed and discussed this phenomenon in the Alps, but it seems +scarcely to have been mentioned since. + +It is difficult to describe at all the scene which the top of the +mountain presented, and impossible to describe it adequately. One was +not occupied with the thought of description but wholly possessed with +the breadth and glory of it, with its sheer, amazing immensity and +scope. Only once, perhaps, in any lifetime is such vision granted, +certainly never before had been vouchsafed to any of us. Not often in +the summer-time does Denali completely unveil himself and dismiss the +clouds from all the earth beneath. Yet we could not linger, unique +though the occasion, dearly bought our privilege; the miserable +limitations of the flesh gave us continual warning to depart; we grew +colder and still more wretchedly cold. The thermometer stood at 7 deg. in +the full sunshine, and the north wind was keener than ever. My fingers +were so cold that I would not venture to withdraw them from the mittens +to change the film in the camera, and the other men were in like case; +indeed, our hands were by this time so numb as to make it almost +impossible to operate a camera at all. A number of photographs had been +taken, though not half we should have liked to take, but it is probable +that, however many more exposures had been made, they would have been +little better than those we got. Our top-of-the-mountain photography was +a great disappointment. One thing we learned: exposures at such altitude +should be longer than those below, perhaps owing to the darkness of the +sky. + +[Illustration: Robert Tatum raising the Stars and Stripes on the highest +point in North America. + +This photograph was exposed upon a previous exposure.] + +[Sidenote: The Stars and Stripes] + +When the mercurial barometer had been read the tent was thrown down and +abandoned, the first of the series of abandonments that marked our +descent from the mountain. The tent-pole was used for a moment as a +flagstaff while Tatum hoisted a little United States flag he had +patiently and skilfully constructed in our camps below out of two silk +handkerchiefs and the cover of a sewing-bag. Then the pole was put to +its permanent use. It had already been carved with a suitable +inscription, and now a transverse piece, already prepared and fitted, +was lashed securely to it and it was planted on one of the little snow +turrets of the summit--the sign of our redemption, high above North +America. Only some peaks in the Andes and some peaks in the Himalayas +rise above it in all the world. It was of light, dry birch and, though +six feet in length, so slender that we think it may weather many a gale. +And Walter thrust it into the snow so firmly at a blow that it could not +be withdrawn again. Then we gathered about it and said the Te Deum. + +[Illustration: The saying of the Te Deum. + +This picture was snapped three times instead of once. Karstens' fingers +were freezing and the bulb-release was broken. Only three figures were +in the group.] + +It was 1.30 P. M. when we reached the summit and two minutes past three +when we left; yet so quickly had the time flown that we could not +believe we had been an hour and a half on top. The journey down was a +long, weary grind, the longer and the wearier that we made a detour and +went out of our way to seek for Professor Parker's thermometer, which he +had left "in a crack on the west side of the last boulder of the +northeast ridge." That sounds definite enough, yet in fact it is +equivocal. "Which is the last boulder?" we disputed as we went down the +slope. A long series of rocks almost in line came to an end, with one +rock a little below the others, a little out of the line. This egregious +boulder would, it seemed to me, naturally be called the last; Karstens +thought not--thought the "last boulder" was the last _on_ the ridge. As +we learned later, Karstens was right, and since he yielded to me we did +not find the thermometer, for, having descended to this isolated rock, +we would not climb up again for fifty thermometers. One's disappointment +is qualified by the knowledge that the thermometer is probably not of +adequate scale, Professor Parker's recollection being that it read only +to 60 deg. below zero, F. A lower temperature than this is recorded every +winter on the Yukon River. + +[Sidenote: Possible Temperatures] + +A thermometer reading to 100 deg. below zero, left at this spot, would, +in my judgment, perhaps yield a lower minimum than has ever yet been +authentically recorded on earth, and it is most unfortunate that the +opportunity was lost. Yet I did not leave my own alcohol minimum--scaled +to 95 deg. below zero, and yielding, by estimation, perhaps ten degrees +below the scaling--there, because of the difficulty of giving explicit +directions that should lead to its ready recovery, and at the close of +such a day of toil as is involved in reaching the summit, men have no +stomach for prolonged search. As will be told, it is cached lower down, +but at a spot where it cannot be missed. + +However, for one, the writer was largely unconscious of weariness in +that descent. All the way down, my thoughts were occupied with the +glorious scene my eyes had gazed upon and should gaze upon never again. +In all human probability I would never climb that mountain again; yet if +I climbed it a score more times I would never be likely to repeat such +vision. Commonly, only for a few hours at a time, never for more than a +few days at a time, save in the dead of winter when climbing is out of +the question, does Denali completely unveil himself and dismiss the +clouds from all the earth beneath him. Not for long, with these lofty +colds contiguous, will the vapors of Cook's Inlet and Prince William +Sound and the whole North Pacific Ocean refrain from sweeping upward; +their natural trend is hitherward. As the needle turns to the magnet so +the clouds find an irresistible attraction in this great mountain mass, +and though the inner side of the range be rid of them the sea side is +commonly filled to overflowing. + +[Sidenote: The Te Deum] + +Only those who have for long years cherished a great and almost +inordinate desire, and have had that desire gratified to the limit of +their expectation, can enter into the deep thankfulness and content that +filled the heart upon the descent of this mountain. There was no pride +of conquest, no trace of that exultation of victory some enjoy upon the +first ascent of a lofty peak, no gloating over good fortune that had +hoisted us a few hundred feet higher than others who had struggled and +been discomfited. Rather was the feeling that a privileged communion +with the high places of the earth had been granted; that not only had we +been permitted to lift up eager eyes to these summits, secret and +solitary since the world began, but to enter boldly upon them, to take +place, as it were, domestically in their hitherto sealed chambers, to +inhabit them, and to cast our eyes down from them, seeing all things as +they spread out from the windows of heaven itself. + +Into this strong yet serene emotion, into this reverent elevation of +spirit, came with a shock a recollection of some recent reading. + +Oh, wisdom of man and the apparatus of the sciences, the little columns +of mercury that sling up and down, the vacuum boxes that expand and +contract, the hammer that chips the highest rocks, the compass that +takes the bearings of glacier and ridge--all the equipage of hypsometry +and geology and geodesy--how pitifully feeble and childish it seems to +cope with the majesty of the mountains! Take them all together, haul +them up the steep, and as they lie there, read, recorded, and done for, +which shall be more adequate to the whole scene--their records?--or that +simple, ancient hymn, "We praise Thee, O God!--Heaven and earth are full +of the majesty of Thy Glory!" What an astonishing thing that, standing +where we stood and seeing what we saw, there are men who should be able +to deduce this law or that from their observation of its working and yet +be unable to see the Lawgiver!--who should be able to push back effect +to immediate cause and yet be blind to the Supreme Cause of All Causes; +who can say, "This is the glacier's doing and it is marvellous in our +eyes," and not see Him "Who in His Strength setteth fast the mountains +and is girded with power," Whose servants the glaciers, the snow, and +the ice are, "wind and storm fulfilling His Word"; who exult in the +exercise of their own intelligences and the playthings those +intelligences have constructed and yet deny the Omniscience that endowed +them with some minute fragment of Itself! It was not always so; it was +not so with the really great men who have advanced our knowledge of +nature. But of late years hordes of small men have given themselves up +to the study of the physical sciences without any study preliminary. It +would almost seem nowadays that whoever can sit in the seat of the +scornful may sit in the seat of learning. + +[Sidenote: The Scientists] + +A good many years ago, on an occasion already referred to, the writer +roamed through the depths of the Grand Canyon with a chance acquaintance +who described himself as "Herpetologist to the Academy of Sciences" in +some Western or Mid-Western State, and as this gentleman found the +curious little reptiles he was in search of under a root or in a cranny +of rock he repeated their many-syllabled names. Curious to know what +these names literally meant and whence derived, the writer made inquiry, +sometimes hazarding a conjectural etymology. To his astonishment and +dismay he found this "scientist," whom he had looked up to, entirely +ignorant of the meaning of the terms he employed. They were just +arbitrary terms to him. The little hopping and crawling creatures might +as well have been numbered, or called x, y, z, for any significance +their formidable nomenclature held for him. Yet this man had been keenly +sarcastic about the Noachian deluge and had jeered from the height of +his superiority at hoary records which he knew only at second-hand +reference, and had laid it down that if the human race became extinct +the birds would stand the best chance of "evolving a primate"! Since +that time other "scientists" have been encountered, with no better +equipment, with no history, no poetry, no philosophy in any broad sense, +men with no letters--illiterate, strictly speaking--yet with all the +dogmatism in the world. Can any one be more dogmatic than your modern +scientist? The reproach has passed altogether to him from the +theologian. + +The thing grows, and its menace and scandal grow with it. Since coming +"outside" the writer has encountered a professor at a college, a Ph.D. +of a great university, who confessed that he had never heard of certain +immortal characters of Dickens whose names are household words. We shall +have to open Night-Schools for Scientists, where men who have been +deprived of all early advantages may learn the rudiments of English +literature. One wishes that Dickens himself might have dealt with their +pretensions, but they are since his day. And surely it is time some one +started a movement for suppressing illiterate Ph.D.'s. + +[Sidenote: The Psalmist and Dr. Johnson] + +Of this class, one feels sure, are the scientific heroes of the +sensational articles in the monthly magazines of the baser sort, of +which we picked up a number in the Kantishna on our way to the mountain. +Here, in a picture that seems to have obtruded itself bodily into a page +of letter-press, or else to have suffered the accidental irruption of a +page of letter-press all around it, you shall see a grave scientist +looking anxiously down a very large microscope, and shall read that he +has transferred a kidney from a cat to a dog, and therefore we can no +longer believe in the immortality of the soul; or else that he has +succeeded in artificially fertilizing the ova of a starfish--or was it a +jellyfish?--and therefore there is no God; not just in so many bald +words, of course, but in unmistakable import. Or it may be--so commonly +does the crassest credulity go hand in hand with the blankest +scepticism--he has discovered the germ of old age and is hot upon the +track of another germ that shall destroy it, so that we may all live +virtually as long as we like; which, of course, disposes once for all of +a world to come. The Psalmist was not always complaisant or even +temperate in his language, but he lived a long time ago and must be +pardoned; his curt summary stands: "Dixit insipiens!" But the writer +vows that if he were addicted to the pursuit of any branch of physical +knowledge he would insist upon being called by the name of that branch. +He would be a physiologist or a biologist or an anatomist or even a +herpetologist, but none should call him "scientist." As Doll Tearsheet +says in the second part of "King Henry IV": "These villains will make +the word as odious as the word 'occupy'; which was an excellent good +word before it was ill-sorted." If Doctor Johnson were compiling an +English dictionary to-day he would define "scientist" something thus: "A +cant name for an experimenter in some department of physical knowledge, +commonly furnished with arrogance and dogmatism, but devoid of real +learning." + +Here is no gibe at the physical sciences. To sneer at them were just as +foolish as to sneer at religion. What we could do on this expedition in +a "scientific" way we did laboriously and zealously. We would never have +thought of attempting the ascent of the mountain without bringing back +whatever little addition to human knowledge was within the scope of our +powers and opportunities. Tatum took rounds of angles, in practice +against the good fortune of a clear day on top, on every possible +occasion. The sole personal credit the present writer takes concerning +the whole enterprise is the packing of that mercurial barometer on his +back, from the Tanana River nearly to the top of the mountain, a point +at which he was compelled to relinquish it to another. He has always had +his opinion about mountain climbers who put an aneroid in their pocket +and go to the top of a great, new peak and come down confidently +announcing its height. But when all this business is done as closely and +carefully as possible, and every observation taken that there are +instruments devised to record, surely the soul is dead that feels no +more and sees no further than the instruments do, that stirs with no +other emotion than the mercury in the tube or the dial at its point of +suspension, that is incapable of awe, of reverence, of worshipful +uplift, and does not feel that "the Lord even the most mighty God hath +spoken, and called the world from the rising of the sun even to the +going down of the same," in the wonders displayed before his eyes. + + * * * * * + +We reached our eighteen-thousand-foot camp about five o'clock, a weary +but happy crew. It was written in the diary that night: "I remember no +day in my life so full of toil, distress, and exhaustion, and yet so +full of happiness and keen gratification." + +[Sidenote: The Amber Glasses Again] + +The culminating day should not be allowed to pass without another +tribute to the efficiency of the amber glasses. Notwithstanding the +glare of the sun at twenty thousand feet and upward, no one had the +slightest irritation of the eyes. There has never been an April of +travel on the Yukon in eight years that the writer has not suffered from +inflammation of the eyes despite the darkest smoke-colored glasses that +could be procured. A naked candle at a road-house would give a stab of +pain every time the eyes encountered it, and reading would become almost +impossible. The amber glasses, however, while leaving vision almost as +bright as without them, filter out the rays that cause the irritation +and afford perfect protection against the consequences of sun and glare. +There is only one improvement to make in the amber glasses, and that is +some device of air-tight cells that shall prevent them from fogging when +the cold on the outside of the glass condenses the moisture of +perspiration on the inside of the glass. We use double-glazed sashes +with an air space between on all windows in our houses in Alaska and +find ourselves no longer incommoded by frost on the panes; some +adaptation of this principle should be within the skill of the optician +and would remove a very troublesome defect in all snow-glasses. + +If some one would invent a preventive against shortness of breath as +efficient as amber glasses are against snow-blindness, climbing at great +altitudes would lose all its terrors for one mountaineer. So far as it +was possible to judge, no other member of the party was near his +altitude limit. There seemed no reason why Karstens and Walter in +particular should not go another ten thousand feet, were there a +mountain in the world ten thousand feet higher than Denali, but the +writer knows that he himself could not have gone much higher. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[4] The dotted line on the photograph opposite page 346 of Mr. Belmore +Browne's book, "The Conquest of Mt. McKinley," does not, in the writer's +opinion, represent the real course taken by Professor Parker, Mr. +Belmore Browne, and Merl La Voy in their approach to the summit, and it +is easy to understand the confusion of direction in the fierce storm +that descended upon the party. If, as the dots show, the party went to +the summit of the right-hand peak, they went out of their way and had +still a considerable distance to travel. "Perhaps five minutes of easy +walking would have taken us to the highest point," says Mr. Browne. It +is probably more than a mile from the summit of the snow peak shown in +the picture to the actual summit of the mountain. One who took that +course would have to descend from the peak and then ascend the horseshoe +ridge, and the highest point of the horseshoe ridge is perhaps two +hundred feet above the summit of this snow peak. In the opinion that +Professor Parker expressed to the writer, the dotted lines should bear +much more to the left, making directly for the centre of the horseshoe +ridge, which is the obvious course. But it should again be said that men +in the circumstances and condition of this party when forced to turn +back, may be pardoned for mistaking the exact direction in which they +had been proceeding. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RETURN + + +The next day was another bright, cloudless day, the second and last of +them. Perhaps never did men abandon as cheerfully stuff that had been +freighted as laboriously as we abandoned our surplus baggage at the +eighteen-thousand-foot camp. We made a great pile of it in the lee of +one of the ice-blocks of the glacier--food, coal-oil, clothing, and +bedding--covering all with the wolf-robe and setting up a shovel as a +mark; though just why we cached it so carefully, or for whom, no one of +us would be able to say. It will probably be a long time ere any others +camp in that Grand Basin. While yet such a peak is unclimbed, there is +constant goading of mountaineering minds to its conquest; once its top +has been reached, the incentive declines. Much exploring work is yet to +do on Denali; the day will doubtless come when all its peaks and ridges +and glaciers will be duly mapped, but our view from the summit agreed +with our study of its conformation during the ascent, that no other +route will be found to the top. When first we were cutting and climbing +on the ridge, and had glimpses, as the mists cleared, of the glacier on +the other side and the ridges that arose from it, we thought that +perhaps they might afford a passage, but from above the appearance +changed and seemed to forbid it altogether. At times, almost in despair +at the task which the Northeast Ridge presented, we would look across at +the ice-covered rocks of the North Peak and dream that they might be +climbed, but they are really quite impossible. The south side has been +tried again and again and no approach discovered, nor did it appear from +the top that such approach exists; the west side is sheer precipice; the +north side is covered with a great hanging glacier and is devoid of +practicable slopes; it has been twice attempted. Only on the northeast +has the glacier cut so deeply into the mountain as to give access to the +heights. + +June 8th was Sunday, but we had to take advantage of the clear, bright +day to get as far down the mountain as possible. The stuff it was still +necessary to pack made good, heavy loads, and we knew not what had +happened to our staircase in our absence. + +[Sidenote: The Record] + +Having said Morning Prayer, we left at 9.30 A. M., after a night in +which all of us slept soundly--the first sound sleep some had enjoyed +for a long time. Contentment and satisfaction are great somnifacients. +The Grand Basin was glorious in sunshine, the peaks crystal-clear +against a cloudless sky, the huge blocks of ice thrown down by the +earthquake and scattered all over the glacier gleamed white in the +sunshine, deep-blue in the shadow. We wound our way downward, passing +camp site after camp site, until at the first place we camped in the +Grand Basin we stopped for lunch. Then we made the traverse under the +cliffs to the Parker Pass, which we reached at 1.30 P. M. The sun was +hot; there was not a breath of wind; we were exceedingly thirsty and we +decided to light the primus stove and make a big pot of tea and +replenish the thermos bottles before attempting the descent of the +ridge. While this was doing a place was found to cache the minimum +thermometer and a tin can that had held a photographic film, in which we +had placed a record of our ascent. Above, we had not found any +distinctive place in which a record could be deposited with the +assurance that it would be found by any one seeking it. One feels sure +that in the depth of winter very great cold must occur even at this +elevation. Yet we should have liked to leave it much higher. Without +some means, which we did not possess, of marking a position, there +would, however, have been little use in leaving it amid the boulders +where we hunted unsuccessfully for Professor Parker's instrument. We had +hoped to be able to grave some sign upon the rocks with the geological +hammer, but the first time it was brought down upon the granite its +point splintered in the same exasperating way that the New York dealer's +fancy ice-axes behaved when it was attempted to put them to practical +use. "Warranted cast steel" upon an implement ought to be a warning not +to purchase it for mountain work. Tool-steel alone will serve. + +Our little record cache at the Parker Pass, placed at the foot of the +west or upward-facing side of the great slab which marks the natural +camping site, should stand there for many years. It is not a place where +snow lies deep or long, and it will surely be found by any who seek it. +We took our last looks up into the Grand Basin, still brilliant in the +sunshine, our last looks at the summit, still cloudless and clear. There +was a melancholy even in the midst of triumph in looking for the last +time at these scenes where we had so greatly hoped and endeavored--and +had been so amply rewarded. We recalled the eager expectation with which +we first gazed up between these granite slabs into the long-hidden +basin, a week before, and there was sadness in the feeling that in all +probability we should never have this noble view again. + +[Sidenote: Harper Glacier] + +Before the reader turns his back upon the Grand Basin once for all, I +should like to put a name upon the glacier it contains--since it is the +fashion to name glaciers. I should like to call it the Harper Glacier, +after my half-breed companion of three years, who was the first human +being to reach the summit of the mountain. This reason might suffice, +but there is another and most interesting reason for associating the +name Harper with this mountain. Arthur Harper, Walter's father, the +pioneer of all Alaskan miners, "the first man who thought of trying the +Yukon as a mining field so far as we know," as William Ogilvie tells us +in his "Early Days on the Yukon"[5] (and none had better opportunity of +knowing than Ogilvie), was also the first man to make written reference +to this mountain, since Vancouver, the great navigator, saw it from the +head of Cook's Inlet in 1794. + +Arthur Harper, in company with Al. Mayo, made the earliest exploration +of the Tanana River, ascending that stream in the summer of 1878 to +about the present site of Fairbanks; and in a letter to E. W. Nelson, of +the United States Biological Survey, then on the Alaskan coast, Harper +wrote the following winter of the "great ice mountain to the south" as +one of the most wonderful sights of the trip.[6] It is pleasant to think +that a son of his, yet unborn, was to be the first to set foot on its +top; pleasantly also the office of setting his name upon the lofty +glacier, the gleam from which caught his eye and roused his wonder +thirty years ago, falls upon one who has been glad and proud to take, in +some measure, his place. + +[Sidenote: Descent] + +Then began the difficulty and the danger, the toil and the anxiety, of +the descent of the ridge. Karstens led, then followed Tatum, then the +writer, and then Walter. The unbroken surface of the ridge above the +cleavage is sensationally steep, and during our absence nearly two feet +of new snow had fallen upon it. The steps that had been shovelled as we +ascended were entirely obliterated and it was necessary to shovel new +ones; it was the very heat of the day, and by the canons of climbing we +should have camped at the Pass and descended in the early morning. But +all were eager to get down, and we ventured it. Now that our task was +accomplished, our minds reverted to the boy at the base camp long +anxiously expecting us, and we thought of him and spoke of him +continually and speculated how he had fared. One feels upon reflection +that we took more risk in descending that ridge than we took at any time +in the ascent. But Karstens was most cautious and careful, and in the +long and intensive apprenticeship of this expedition had become most +expert. I sometimes wondered whether Swiss guides would have much to +teach either him or Walter in snow-craft; their chief instruction would +probably be along the line of taking more chances, wisely. If the writer +had to ascend this mountain again he would intrust himself to Karstens +and Walter rather than to any Swiss guides he has known, for ice and +snow in Alaska are not quite the same as ice and snow in the Alps or the +Canadian Rockies. + +[Illustration: Beginning the descent of the ridge; looking down 4,000 +feet upon the Muldrow Glacier.] + +The loose snow was shovelled away and the steps dug in the hard snow +beneath, and the creepers upon our feet gave good grip in it. Thus, +slowly, step by step, we descended the ridge and in an hour and a half +had reached the cleavage, the most critical place in the whole descent. +With the least possible motion of the feet, setting them exactly in the +shovelled steps, we crept like cats across this slope, thrusting the +points of our axes into the holes that had been made in the ice-wall +above, moving all together, the rope always taut, no one speaking a +word. When once Karstens was anchored on the further ice he stood and +gathered up the rope as first one and then another passed safely to him +and anchored himself beside him, until at last we were all across. Then, +stooping to pass the overhanging ice-cliff that here also disputed the +pack upon one's back, we went down to the long, long stretch of jagged +pinnacles and bergs, and our intricate staircase in the masonry of them. +Shovelling was necessary all the way down, but the steps were there, +needing only to be uncovered. Passing our ridge camp, passing the danger +of the great gable, down the rocks by which we reached the ridge and +down the slopes to the glacier floor we went, reaching our old camp at +9.30 P. M., six and a quarter hours from the Parker Pass, twelve hours +from the eighteen-thousand-foot camp in the Grand Basin, our hearts full +of thankfulness that the terrible ridge was behind us. Until we reached +the glacier floor the weather had been clear; almost immediately +thereafter the old familiar cloud smother began to pour down from above +and we saw the heights no more. + +[Sidenote: The Glacier Camp] + +The camp was in pretty bad shape. The snow that had fallen upon it had +melted and frozen to ice, in the sun's rays and the night frosts, and +weighed the tent down to the ground. But an hour's work made it +habitable again, and we gleefully piled the stove with the last of our +wood and used the last spoonfuls of a can of baking-powder to make a +batch of biscuits, the first bread we had eaten in two weeks. + +Next day we abandoned the camp, leaving all standing, and, putting our +packs upon a Yukon sled, rejecting the ice-creepers, and resuming our +rough-locked snow-shoes, we started down the glacier in soft, cloudy +weather to our base camp. Again it had been wiser to have waited till +night, that the snow bridges over the crevasses might be at their +hardest; but we could not wait. Every mind was occupied with Johnny. We +were two weeks overstayed of the time we had told him to expect our +return, and we knew not what might have happened to the boy. The four of +us on one rope, Karstens leading and Walter at the gee-pole, we went +down the first sharp descents of the glaciers without much trouble, the +new, soft snow making a good brake for the sled. But lower down the +crevasses began to give us trouble. The snow bridges were melted at +their edges, and sometimes the sled had to be lowered down to the +portion that still held and hauled up at the other side. Sometimes a +bridge gave way as its edge was cautiously ventured upon with the +snow-shoes, and we had to go far over to the glacier wall to get round +the crevasse. The willows with which we had staked the trail still +stood, sometimes just their tips appearing above the new snow, and they +were a good guide, though we often had to leave the old trail. At last +the crevasses were all passed and we reached the lower portion of the +glacier, which is free of them. Then the snow grew softer and softer, +and our moccasined feet were soon wet through. Large patches of the +black shale with which much of this glacier is covered were quite bare +of snow, and the sled had to be hauled laboriously across them. Then we +began to encounter pools of water, which at first we avoided, but they +soon grew so numerous that we went right through them. + +[Sidenote: Flowers] + +The going grew steadily wetter and rougher and more disagreeable. The +lower stretch of a glacier is an unhandsome sight in summer: all sorts +of rock debris and ugly black shale, with discolored melting ice and +snow, intersected everywhere with streams of dirty water--this was what +it had degenerated into as we reached the pass. The snow was entirely +gone from the pass, so the sled was abandoned--left standing upright, +with its gee-pole sticking in the air that if any one else ever chanced +to want it it might readily be found. The snow-shoes were piled around +it, and we resumed our packs and climbed up to the pass. The first thing +that struck our eyes as we stood upon the rocks of the pass was a +brilliant trailing purple moss flower of such gorgeous color that we all +exclaimed at its beauty and wondered how it grew clinging to bare rock. +It was the first bright color that we had seen for so long that it gave +unqualified pleasure to us all and was a foretaste of the enhancing +delights that awaited us as we descended to the bespangled valley. If a +man would know to the utmost the charm of flowers, let him exile himself +among the snows of a lofty mountain during fifty days of spring and come +down into the first full flush of summer. We could scarcely pass a +flower by, and presently had our hands full of blooms like schoolgirls +on a picnic. + +But although the first things that attracted our attention were the +flowers, the next were the mosquitoes. They were waiting for us at the +pass and they gave us their warmest welcome. The writer took sharp blame +to himself that, organizing and equipping this expedition, he had made +no provision against these intolerable pests. But we had so confidently +expected to come out a month earlier, before the time of mosquitoes +arrived, that although the matter was suggested and discussed it was put +aside as unnecessary. Now there was the prospect of a fifty or sixty +mile tramp across country, subject all the while to the assaults of +venomous insects, which are a greater hindrance to summer travel in +Alaska than any extremity of cold is to winter travel. + +Not even the mosquitoes, however, took our minds from Johnny, and a load +was lifted from every heart when we came near enough to our camp to see +that some one was moving about it. A shout brought him running, and he +never stopped until he had met us and had taken the pack from my +shoulders and put it on his own. Our happiness was now unalloyed; the +last anxiety was removed. The dogs gave us most jubilant welcome and +were fat and well favored. + +[Sidenote: Johnny and the Sugar] + +What a change had come over the place! All the snow was gone from the +hills; the stream that gathered its three forks at this point roared +over its rocks; the stunted willows were in full leaf; the thick, soft +moss of every dark shade of green and yellow and red made a foil for +innumerable brilliant flowers. The fat, gray conies chirped at us from +the rocks; the ground-squirrels, greatly multiplied since the wholesale +destruction of foxes, kept the dogs unavailingly chasing hither and +thither whenever they were loose. We never grew tired of walking up and +down and to and fro about the camp--it was a delight to tread upon the +moss-covered earth after so long treading upon nothing but ice and snow; +it was a delight to gaze out through naked eyes after all those weeks in +which we had not dared even for a few moments to lay aside the yellow +glasses in the open air; it was a delight to see joyful, eager animal +life around us after our sojourn in regions dead. Supper was a delight. +Johnny had killed four mountain-sheep and a caribou while we were gone, +and not only had fed the dogs well, but from time to time had put aside +choice portions expecting our return. But what was most grateful to us +and most extraordinary in him, the boy had saved, untouched, the small +ration of sugar and milk left for his consumption, knowing that ours was +all destroyed; and we enjoyed coffee with these luxurious appurtenances +as only they can who have been long deprived of them. There are not many +boys of fifteen or sixteen of any race who would voluntarily have done +the like. + +[Illustration: Johnny Fred who kept the base camp and fed the dogs and +would not touch the sugar.] + +The next day there was much to do. There were pack-saddles of canvas to +make for the dogs' backs that they might help us carry our necessary +stuff out; our own clothing and footwear to overhaul, bread to bake, +guns to clean and oil against rust. Yet withal, we took it lazily, with +five to divide these tasks, and napped and lay around and continually +consumed biscuits and coffee which Johnny continually cooked. We all +took at least a partial bath in the creek, cold as it was, the first +bath in--well, in a long time. Mountain climbers belong legitimately to +the great unwashed. + +It was a day of perfect rest and contentment with hearts full of +gratitude. Not a single mishap had occurred to mar the complete success +of our undertaking--not an injury of any sort to any one, nor an +illness. All five of us were in perfect health. Surely we had reason to +be grateful; and surely we were happy in having Him to whom our +gratitude might be poured out. What a bald, incomplete, and +disconcerting thing it must be to have no one to thank for crowning +mercies like these! + +On Tuesday, the 10th June, we made our final abandonment, leaving the +tent standing with stove and food and many articles that we did not need +cached in it, and with four of the dogs carrying packs and led with +chains, packs on our own backs and the ice-axes for staves in our hands, +we turned our backs upon the mountain and went down the valley toward +the Clearwater. The going was not too bad until we had crossed that +stream and climbed the hills to the rolling country between it and the +McKinley Fork of the Kantishna. Again and again we looked back for a +parting glimpse of the mountain, but we never saw sign of it any more. +The foot-hills were clear, the rugged wall of the glacier cut the sky, +but the great mountain might have been a thousand miles off for any +visible indication it gave. It is easy to understand how travellers +across equatorial Africa have passed near the base of the snowy peaks of +Ruwenzori without knowing they were even in the neighborhood of great +mountains, and have come back and denied their existence. + +[Sidenote: Across Country] + +The broken country between the streams was difficult. Underneath was a +thick elastic moss in which the foot sank three or four inches at every +step and that makes toilsome travelling. The mosquitoes were a constant +annoyance. But the abundant bird life upon this open moorland, +continually reminding one as it did of moorlands in the north of England +or of Scotland, was full of interest. Ptarmigan, half changed from their +snowy plumage to the brown of summer, and presenting a curious piebald +appearance, were there in great numbers, cackling their guttural cry +with its concluding notes closely resembling the "ko-ax, ko-ax" of the +Frogs' Chorus in the comedy of Aristophanes; snipe whistled and curlews +whirled all about us. Half-way across to the McKinley Fork it began to +rain, thunder-peal succeeding thunder-peal, and each crash announcing a +heavier downpour. Soon we were all wet through, and then the rain turned +to hail that fell smartly until all the moss was white with it, and that +gave place to torrents of rain again. Dog packs and men's packs were +alike wet, and no one of us had a dry stitch on him when we reached the +banks of the McKinley Fork and the old spacious hunting tent that stands +there in which we were to spend the night. Rather hopelessly we hung our +bedding to dry on ropes strung about some trees, and our wet clothing +around the stove. By taking turns all the night in sitting up, to keep a +fire going, we managed to get our clothes dried by morning, but the +bedding was wet as ever. Fortunately, the night was a warm one. + +[Sidenote: Glacial Streams] + +The next morning there was the McKinley Fork to cross the first thing, +and it was a difficult and disagreeable task. This stream, which drains +the Muldrow Glacier and therefore the whole northeast face of Denali, +occupies a dreary, desolate bed of boulder and gravel and mud a mile or +more wide; rather it does not occupy it, save perhaps after tremendous +rain following great heat, but wanders amid it, with a dozen channels of +varying depth but uniform blackness, the inky solution of the shale +which the mountain discharges so abundantly tingeing not only its waters +but the whole Kantishna, into which it flows one hundred miles away. +Commonly in the early morning the waters are low, the night frosts +checking the melting of the glacier ice; but this morning the drainage +of yesterday's rain-storm had swollen them. Channel after channel was +waded in safety until the main stream was reached, and that swept by, +thigh-deep, with a rushing black current that had a very evil look. +Karstens was scouting ahead, feeling for the shallower places, stemming +the hurrying waters till they swept up to his waist. The dogs did not +like the look of it and with their packs, still wet from yesterday, were +hampered in swimming. Two that Tatum was leading suddenly turned back +when half-way across, and the chains, entangling his legs, pulled him +over face foremost into the deepest of the water. His pack impeded his +efforts to rise, and the water swept all over him. Karstens hurried back +to his rescue, and he was extricated from his predicament, half drowned +and his clothes filled with mud and sand. There was no real danger of +drowning, but it was a particularly noxious ducking in icy filth. The +sun was warm, however, and after basking upon the rocks awhile he was +able to proceed, still wet, though he had stripped and wrung out his +clothes--for we had no dry change--and very gritty in underwear, but +taking no harm whatever. I think Tatum regretted losing, in the mad rush +of black water, the ice-axe he had carried to the top of the mountain +more than he regretted his wetting. + +[Sidenote: Birds and Beasts] + +On the further bank of the McKinley Fork we entered our first wood, a +belt about three miles wide that lines the river. Our first forest trees +gave us almost as much pleasure as our first flowers. Animal life +abounded, all in the especially interesting condition of rearing +half-grown young. Squirrels from their nests scolded at our intrusion +most vehemently; an owl flew up with such a noisy snapping and +chattering that our attention was drawn to the point from which she +rose, and there, perched upon a couple of rotten stumps a few feet +apart, were two half-fledged owlets, passive, immovable, which allowed +themselves to be photographed and even handled without any indication of +life except in their wondering eyes and the circumrotary heads that +contained them. Moose signs and bear signs were everywhere; rabbits, now +in their summer livery, flitted from bush to bush. That belt of wood was +a zoological garden stocked with birds and mammals. And we rejoiced with +them over their promising families and harmed none. + +From the wood we rose again to the moorland--to the snipe and ptarmigan +and curlews, some yet sitting upon belated eggs--to the heavy going of +the moss and the yet heavier going of niggerhead. Our journey skirted a +large lake picturesquely surrounded by hills, and we spoke of how +pleasantly a summer lodge might be placed upon its shores were it not +for the mosquitoes. The incessant leaping of fish, the occasional flight +of fowl alone disturbed the perfect reflection of cliff and hill in its +waters. At times we followed game trails along its margin; at times +swampy ground made us seek the hillside. + +Thus, slowly covering the miles that we had gone so quickly over upon +the ice of the lake two months before, we reached Moose Creek and the +miners' cabins at Eureka late at night and received warm welcome and +most hospitable entertainment from Mr. Jack Hamilton. It was good to see +men other than our own party again, good to sleep in a bed once more, +good to regale ourselves with food long strange to our mouths. Here we +had our first intimation of any happenings in the outside world for the +past three months and sorrowed that Saint Sophia was still to remain a +Mohammedan temple, and that the kindly King of Greece had been murdered. +Here also Hamilton generously provided us with spare mosquito-netting +for veils, and we found a package of canvas gloves I had ordered from +Fairbanks long before, and so were protected from our chief enemies. +From Moose Creek we went over the hills to Caribou Creek and again were +most kindly welcomed and entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Quigley, and +discussed our climb for a long while with McGonogill of the "pioneer" +party. Then, mainly down the bed of Glacier Creek, now on lingering ice +or snow-drift, with the water rushing underneath, now on the rocks, now +through the brush, crossing and recrossing the creek, we reached the +long line of desolate, decaying houses known as Glacier City, and found +convenient refuge in one of the cabins therein, still maintained as an +occasional abode. On the outskirts of the "city" next morning a moose +and two calves sprang up from the brush, our approach over the moss not +giving enough notice to awake her from sleep until we were almost upon +her. + +[Illustration: "Muk," the author's pet malamute.] + +[Sidenote: The Boat] + +Instead of pursuing our way across the increasingly difficult and swampy +country to the place where our boat and supplies lay cached, we turned +aside at midday to the "fish camp" on the Bearpaw, and, after enjoying +the best our host possessed from the stream and from his early garden, +borrowed his boat, choosing twenty miles or so on the water to nine of +niggerhead and marsh. But the river was very low and we had much trouble +getting the boat over riffles and bars, so that it was late at night +when we reached that other habitation of dragons known as Diamond City. +While we submerged our cached poling boat to swell its sun-dried seams, +Walter and Johnny returned the borrowed boat, and, since the stream had +fallen yet more, were many hours in reaching the fish camp and in +tramping back. + +[Sidenote: The Beaver and the Indians] + +But the labor of the return journey was now done. A canvas stretched +over willows made a shelter for the centre of the boat, and at noon on +the second day men, dogs, and baggage were embarked, to float down the +Bearpaw to the Kantishna, to the Tanana, to the Yukon. The Bearpaw +swarmed with animal life. Geese and ducks, with their little terrified +broods, scooted ahead of us on the water, the mothers presently leaving +their young in a nook of the bank and making a flying detour to return +to them. Sometimes a duck would simulate a broken wing to lure us away +from the little ones. We had no meat and were hungry for the usual early +summer diet of water-fowl, but not hungry enough to kill these birds. +Beaver dropped noisily into the water from trees that exhibited their +marvellous carpentry, some lying prostrate, some half chiselled through. +It seemed, indeed, as though the beaver were preparing great irrigation +works all through this country. Since the law went into effect +prohibiting their capture until 1915 they have increased and multiplied +all over interior Alaska. They are still caught by the natives, but +since their skins cannot be sold the Indians are wearing beaver garments +again to the great advantage of health in the severe winters. One wishes +very heartily that the prohibition might be made perpetual, for only so +will fur become the native wear again. It is good to see the children, +particularly, in beaver coats and breeches instead of the wretched +cotton that otherwise is almost their only garb. Would it be altogether +beyond reason to hope that a measure which was enacted to prevent the +extermination of an animal might be perpetuated on behalf of the +survival of an interesting and deserving race of human beings now sorely +threatened? Or is it solely the conservation of commercial resources +that engages the attention of government? There are few measures that +would redound more to the physical benefit of the Alaskan Indian than +the perpetuating of the law against the sale of beaver skins. With the +present high and continually appreciating price of skins, none of the +common people of the land, white or native, can afford to wear furs. +Such a prohibition as has been suggested would restore to Alaskans a +small share in the resources of Alaska. Is there any country in the +world where furs are actually needed more? + +Not only beaver, but nearly all fur and game animals have greatly +increased in the Kantishna country. In the year of the stampede, when +thousands of men spent the winter here, there was wholesale destruction +of game and trapping of fur. But the country, left to itself, is now +restocked of game and fur, except of foxes, the high price of which has +almost exterminated them here and is rapidly exterminating them +throughout interior Alaska. They have been poisoned in the most reckless +and unscrupulous way, and there seems no means of stopping it under the +present law. We saw scarcely a fox track in the country, though a few +years ago they were exceedingly plentiful all over the foot-hills of the +great range. Mink, marten, and muskrat were seen from time to time +swimming in the river; a couple of yearling moose started from the bank +where they had been drinking as we noiselessly turned a bend; brilliant +kingfishers flitted across the water. So down these rivers we drifted, +sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in rain, until early in the morning of +the 20th June, we reached Tanana, and our journey was concluded three +months and four days after it was begun. When the telegraph office +opened at 8 o'clock a message was sent, in accordance with promise, to a +Seattle paper, and it illustrates the rapidity with which news is spread +to-day that a ship in Bering Sea, approaching Nome, received the news +from Seattle by wireless telegraph before 11 A. M. But a message from +the Seattle paper received the same morning asking for "five hundred +more words describing narrow escapes" was left unanswered, for, thank +God, there were none to describe. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[5] Ottawa: Thorburn & Abbott, 1913, p. 87. + +[6] "Mt. McKinley Region": Alfred H. Brooks, Washington, 1911, p. 25. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE HEIGHT OF DENALI, WITH A DISCUSSION OF THE READINGS ON THE SUMMIT +AND DURING THE ASCENT + + +The determination of the heights of mountains by triangulation is, of +course, the method that in general commends itself to the topographer, +though it may be questioned whether the very general use of aneroids for +barometric determinations has not thrown this latter means of measuring +altitudes into undeserved discredit when the mercurial barometer is used +instead of its convenient but unreliable substitute. + +The altitude given on the present maps for Denali is the mean of +determinations made by triangulation by three different men: Muldrow on +the Sushitna[7] side in 1898, Raeburn on the Kuskokwim side in 1902, and +Porter, from the Yentna country in 1906. In addition, a determination +was made by the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1910, from points near +Cook's Inlet. "The work of the Coast Survey," writes Mr. Alfred Brooks, +"is more refined than the rough triangulation done by our men; at the +same time they were much further away." "It is a curious coincidence," +he adds, "that the determination made by the Coast Survey was the mean +which we had assumed from our three determinations" (twenty thousand +three hundred feet). + +[Sidenote: Theodolites and Barometers] + +There are, however, two sources of error in the determination of the +height of this mountain by triangulation--a general one and a particular +one. The general one lies in the difficulty of ascertaining the proper +correction to be applied for the refraction of the atmosphere, and the +higher the mountain the greater the liability to this error; for not +much is positively known about the angle of refraction of the upper +regions of the air. The officers of the Trigonometrical Survey of India +have published their opinion that the heights of the great peaks of the +Himalayas will have to be revised on this account. The report of the +Coast Survey's determination of the height of Denali claims a +"co-efficient of refraction nearer the truth" than the figure used on a +previous occasion; but a very slight difference in this factor will make +a considerable difference in the result. + +The particular source of error in the case of this mountain lies in the +circumstance that its summit is flat, and there is no culminating point +upon which the cross-hairs of the surveying instrument may intersect. + +The barometric determination of heights is, of course, not without +similar troubles of its own. The tables of altitudes corresponding to +pressures do not agree, Airy's table giving relatively greater altitudes +for very low pressures than the Smithsonian. All such tables as +originally calculated are based upon the hypothesis of a temperature and +humidity which decrease regularly with the altitude, and this is not +always the case; nor is the "static equilibrium of the atmosphere" which +Laplace assumed always maintained; that is to say an equal difference of +pressure does not always correspond to an equal difference of altitude. +There is, in point of fact, no absolute way to determine altitude save +by running an actual line of levels; all other methods are +approximations at best. But there had never been a barometric +determination of the height of this mountain made, and it was resolved +to attempt it on this expedition. + +To this end careful arrangements were made and much labor and trouble +undergone. The author carried his standard mercurial mountain barometer +to Fort Gibbon on the Yukon in September, 1912, and compared it with the +instrument belonging to the Signal Corps of the United States army at +that post. A very close agreement was found in the two instruments; the +reading of the one, by himself, and of the other, by the sergeant whose +regular duty it was to read and record the instrument, being identical +to two places of decimals at the same temperature. + +[Sidenote: Readings on the Summit] + +Arrangements were made with Captain Michel of the Signal Corps at Fort +Gibbon, when the expedition started to the mountain in March, 1913, to +read the barometer at that post three times a day and record the reading +with the reading of the attached thermometer. Acknowledgment is here +made of Captain Michel's courtesy and kindness in this essential +co-operation. The reading at Fort Gibbon which most nearly synchronizes +with the reading on top of the mountain is the one taken at noon on the +7th June. The reading on top of the mountain was made at about 1.50 +P. M., so that there was an hour and fifty minutes difference in time. +The weather, however, was set fair, without a cloud in the sky, and had +been for more than twelve hours before and remained so for thirty-six +hours afterward. It would seem, therefore, that the difference in time +is negligible. The reading at Fort Gibbon, a place of an altitude of +three hundred and thirty-four feet above sea-level, at noon on the 7th +June, was 29.590 inches with an attached thermometer reading 76.5 deg. F. +The reading on the summit of Denali, at 1.50 P. M. on the same day, was +13.617. The writer is greatly chagrined that he cannot give with the +same confidence the reading of the attached thermometer on top of the +mountain, but desires to set forth the circumstances and give the +readings in his note-book records. + +The note-book gives the air temperature on the summit as 7 deg. F., taken +by a standard alcohol minimum thermometer, and it remained constant during +the hour and a half we were there. The sun was shining, but a bitter +north wind was blowing. But the reading of the thermometer attached to +the barometer is recorded as 20 deg. F. I am unable to account for this +discrepancy of 13 deg. The mercurial barometer was swung on its tripod +inside the instrument tent we had carried to the summit, a rough zero +was established, and it was left for twenty minutes or so to adjust +itself to conditions before an exact reading was taken. It was my custom +throughout the ascent to read and record the thermometer immediately +after the barometer was read, but it is almost certain that on this +momentous occasion it was not done. Possibly the thermometer was read +immediately the instrument was taken out of its leather case and its +wooden case and set up, while it yet retained some of the animal heat of +the back that had borne it, and the reading was written in the prepared +place. Then when the barometer was finally read, no temperature of the +attached thermometer was noted. This is the only possible explanation +that occurs, and it is very unsatisfactory. It was not until we were +down at the base camp again that I looked at the figures, and discovered +their difference, and I could not then recall in detail the precise +operations on the summit. It is hard to understand, ordinarily, how any +man could have recorded the two readings on the same page of the book +without noticing their discrepancy, but perhaps the excitement and +difficulty of the situation combined to produce what Sir Martin Conway +calls "high altitude stupidity." + +[Sidenote: In Exculpation] + +It is indeed impossible to convey to the reader who has never found +himself circumstanced as we were an understanding of our perturbation of +mind and body upon reaching the summit of the mountain: breathless with +excitement--and with the altitude--hearts afire and feet nigh frozen. +What should be done on top, what first, what next, had been carefully +planned and even rehearsed, but we were none of us schooled in stoical +self-repression to command our emotions completely. Here was the crown +of nearly three months' toil--and of all those long years of desire and +expectation. It was hard to gather one's wits and resolutely address +them to prearranged tasks; hard to secure a sufficient detachment of +mind for careful and accurate observations. The sudden outspreading of +the great mass of Denali's Wife immediately below us and in front of us +was of itself a surprise that was dramatic and disconcerting; a splendid +vision from which it was difficult to withdraw the eyes. We knew, of +course, the companion peak was there, but had forgotten all about her, +having had no slightest glimpse of her on the whole ascent until at the +one stroke she stood completely revealed. Not more dazzling to the eyes +of the pasha in the picture was the form of the lovely woman when the +slave throws off the draperies that veiled her from head to foot. +Moreover, problems that had been discussed and disputed, questions about +the conformation of the mountain and the possibilities of approach to +it, were now soluble at a glance and clamored for solution. We held them +back and fell at once to our scientific work, denying any gratification +of sight until these tasks were performed, yet it is plain that I at +least was not proof against the disturbing consciousness of the wonders +that waited. + +It was bitterly cold, yet my fingers, though numb, were usable when I +reached the top; it was in exposing them to manipulate the hypsometrical +instruments that they lost all feeling and came nigh freezing. And +breathlessness was naturally at its worst; I remember that even the +exertion of rising from the prone position it was necessary to assume to +read the barometer brought on a fit of panting. + +[Sidenote: Calculations for Altitude] + +With these circumstances in mind we will resume the discussion of the +readings taken on the summit and their bearing upon the altitude of the +mountain. It seems right to disregard the temperature recorded for the +attached thermometer, and to use the air temperature, of which there is +no doubt, in correcting the barometric reading. So they stand: + + Bar. Temp. + 13.617 inches 7 deg. F. + +The boiling-point thermometer stood at 174.9 deg. F. when the steam was +pouring out of the vent. + +They stand therefore: + + _Gibbon_ (334 feet altitude) _The Summit of Denali_ + Bar. Ther. Bar. Ther. + 29.590 76.5 deg. F. 13.617 7 deg. F. + +Now, the tables accessible to the writer do not work out their +calculations beyond eighteen thousand feet, and he confesses himself too +long unused to mathematical labors of any kind for the task of extending +them. He was, therefore, constrained to fall back upon the kindness of +Mr. Alfred Brooks, the head of the Alaskan Division of the United States +Geological Survey, and Mr. Brooks turned over the data to Mr. C. E. +Giffin, topographic engineer of that service, to which gentleman +thankful acknowledgment is made for the result that follows. + +[Sidenote: Fort Gibbon and Valdez as Bases] + +Ignoring a calculation based upon a temperature of 20 deg. F. on the +summit, and another based upon a temperature of 13.5 deg. F. on the +summit (the mean of the air temperature and that recorded for the +attached thermometer) and confining attention to the calculation which +takes the air temperature of 7 deg. F. as the proper figure for the +correction of the barometer, a result is reached which shows the summit +of Denali as twenty-one thousand and eight feet above the sea. It should +be added that Mr. Giffin obtained from the United States Weather Bureau +the barometric and thermometric readings taken at Valdez on 7th June about +the same length of time after our reading on the summit as the reading +at Gibbon was before ours. From these readings Mr. Giffin makes the +altitude of the mountain twenty thousand three hundred and seventy-four +feet above Valdez, which is ten feet above the sea-level. From this +result Mr. Giffin is disposed to question the accuracy of the reading at +Gibbon, though the author has no reason to doubt it was properly and +carefully made. Valdez is much farther from the summit than Fort Gibbon +and is in a different climatic zone. The calculation from the Valdez +base should, however, be taken into consideration in making this +barometric determination, and the mean of the two results, twenty +thousand six hundred and ninety-six feet, or, roundly, _twenty thousand +seven hundred feet_, is offered as the contribution of this expedition +toward determining the true altitude of the mountain. + +The figures of Mr. Giffin's calculations touching the altitude of this +mountain and also determining the altitudes of various salient points or +stages of the ascent of the mountain are printed below: + + DENALI (MOUNT McKINLEY) + + USING AIR THERMOMETER READING +7 deg. AND THE READING + AT FORT GIBBON FOR SAME DATE + + Mount McKinley, barometric reading 13.617 in. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature +.027 " Temp. 7 deg. + ------ + 13.644 in. + + Fort Gibbon, barometric reading 29.590 in. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.128 " Temp. 76.5 deg. + ------ + 29.462 in. + + Mount McKinley, corrected barometer 13.644 in. 21,324 ft. + Fort Gibbon, corrected barometer 29.462 " 400 " + ------ + 20,924 ft. + + Mean temperature, 41.7 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 20,924 ft. -356 ft. + Latitude, 64 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 20,568 " +15 " + Mean temperature, 41.7 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 20,568 " +71 " + Elevation lowest, 400--approximate + difference in elevation 20,568 " +20 " + ------ + Elevation above Fort Gibbon 20,674 ft. + Elevation of Fort Gibbon 334 " + ------ + _Elevation above sea_ 21,008 ft. + + + USING THE THERMOMETRIC READING OF 7 deg. AT MOUNT + MCKINLEY AND THE U. S. WEATHER BUREAU READING + AT VALDEZ FOR SAME DATE + + Mount McKinley, barometric reading 13.617 in. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature +.027 " Temp. 7 deg. + ------ + 13.644 in. + + Valdez, barometric reading 29.76 in. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature .068 " + ------ + 29.692 in. Temp. 54 deg. + + Mount McKinley, corrected barometric reading 13.644 in. 21,324 ft. + Valdez, corrected barometric reading 29.692 " 190 " + ------ + 21,134 ft. + Mean temperature, 30.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 21,134 ft. -840 " + Latitude, 62 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 20,295 " +18 " + + Mean temperature, 30.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 20,295 ft. +42 ft. + Elevation lowest, 190--approximate + difference in elevation 20,295 " +20 " + ------ + Elevation above Valdez 20,374 ft. + Elevation of Valdez 10 " + ------ + _Elevation above sea_ 20,384 ft. + + + ALTITUDES OF CAMPING STATIONS + + FIRST GLACIER CAMP + + Glacier Camp, barometric reading. 22.554 in. Temp. 81 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.106 " + ------ + 22.448 in. + Fort Gibbon, barometric reading 29.110 in. Temp. 74 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.120 " + ------ + 28.990 in. + Glacier Camp, corrected barometer 22.448 in. 7,791 ft. + Fort Gibbon, corrected barometer 28.990 " 840 " + ------ + 6,951 ft. + Mean temperature, 77.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 6,951 ft. +393 " + Latitude, 64 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 7,343 " +5 " + Mean temperature, 77.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 7,343 " +74 " + Elevation lowest, 840--approximate + difference in elevation 7,343 " +3 " + ------ + Elevation above Fort Gibbon 7,426 ft. + Elevation of Fort Gibbon 334 " + ------ + _Elevation above sea_ 7,760 ft. + + + HEAD OF MULDROW GLACIER + + Muldrow Glacier, barometric reading 19.640 in. Temp. 36 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.013 " + ------- + 19.627 in. + Fort Gibbon, barometric reading 30.065 in. Temp. 71 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.115 " + ------- + 29.950 in. + Muldrow Glacier, corrected barometer 19.627 in. 11,441 ft. + Fort Gibbon, corrected barometer 29.950 " (-)45 " + ------ + 11,486 ft. + Temperature, 53.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 11,486 ft. +79 " + Latitude, 65 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 11,565 " +8 " + Mean temperature, 53.5 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 11,565 " +63 " + Elevation lowest, 45--approximate + difference in elevation 11,565 " +6 " + ------- + Elevation above Fort Gibbon 11,642 ft. + Elevation of Fort Gibbon 334 " + ------- + _Elevation above sea_ 11,976 ft. + + + PARKER PASS + + Parker Pass, barometric reading 17.330 in. Temp. 43 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.023 " + ------- + 17.307 in. + + Fort Gibbon, barometric reading 30.050 in. Temp. 69.5 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.111 " + ------ + 29.939 in. + Parker Pass, corrected barometer 17.307 in. 14,861 ft. + Fort Gibbon, corrected barometer 29.939 " (-)35 " + ------ + 14,896 ft. + Mean temperature, 56.25 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 14,896 ft. +185 " + Latitude, 64 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 15,091 " +11 " + At temperature of 56.25 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 15,091 " +92 " + Elevation lowest, -35 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 15,091 " +11 " + ------ + Elevation above Fort Gibbon 15,195 ft. + Elevation of Fort Gibbon 334 " + ------ + _Elevation above sea_ 15,529 ft. + + + LAST CAMP + + Last Camp, barometric reading 15.220 in. Temp. 40 deg. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.016 " + ------ + 15.204 in. + Fort Gibbon, barometric reading 29.660 in. + Barometer reduced to standard temperature -.120 " Temp. 73.5 deg. + ------ + 29.540 in. + Last Camp, corrected barometer 15.204 in. 18,382 ft. + Fort Gibbon, corrected barometer 29.540 " 329 " + ------ + 18,053 ft. + + Mean temperature, 56.75 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 18,053 ft. +248 ft. + Latitude, 64 deg.--approximate difference + in elevation 18,301 " +17 " + Mean temperature, 56.75 deg.--approximate + difference in elevation 18,301 " +112 " + Elevation lowest, 329--approximate + difference in elevation 18,301 " +16 " + ------ + Elevation above Fort Gibbon 18,446 ft. + Elevation of Fort Gibbon 334 " + ------ + _Elevation above sea_ 18,780 ft. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[7] "Sushitna" represents unquestionably the native pronunciation and +the "h" should be retained. The reason for its elision current in Alaska +is too contemptible to be referred to further. Perhaps the same genius +removed this "h" who removed the "'s" from the "Cook's Inlet" of the +British admiralty. One is not surprised when a post-office at Cape +Prince of Wales is named "Wales" because one is not surprised at any +banalities of the postal department--in Alaska or elsewhere, but one +expects better things from the cultured branches of the government +service. It is interesting to speculate what will happen to +Revillagigedo Island, which Vancouver named for the viceroy of Mexico +who was kind to him, when the official curtailer of names finds time to +attend to _it_. If there be a post-office thereon it is probably already +named "Gig." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +EXPLORATIONS OF THE DENALI REGION AND PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT ITS ASCENT + + +The first mention in literature of the greatest mountain group in North +America is in the narrative of that most notable navigator, George +Vancouver. While surveying the Knik Arm of Cook's Inlet, in 1794, he +speaks of his view of a connected mountain range "bounded by distant +stupendous snow mountains covered with snow and apparently detached from +each other." Vancouver's name has grown steadily greater during the last +fifty years as modern surveys have shown the wonderful detailed accuracy +of his work, and the seamen of the Alaskan coast speak of him as the +prince of all navigators. + +Not until 1878 is there another direct mention of these mountains, +although the Russian name for Denali, "Bulshaia Gora," proves that it +had long been observed and known. + +[Sidenote: Harper, Densmore, Dickey] + +In that year two of the early Alaskan traders, Alfred Mayo and Arthur +Harper, made an adventurous journey some three hundred miles up the +Tanana River, the first ascent of that river by white men, and upon +their return reported finding gold in the bars and mentioned an enormous +ice mountain visible in the south, which they said was one of the most +remarkable things they had seen on their trip. + +In 1889 Frank Densmore, a prospector, with several companions, crossed +from the Tanana to the Kuskokwim by way of the Coschaket and Lake +Minchumina, and had the magnificent view of the Denali group which Lake +Minchumina affords, which the present writer was privileged to have in +1911. Densmore's description was so enthusiastic that the mountain was +known for years among the Yukon prospectors as "Densmore's mountain." + +Though unquestionably many men traversed the region after the discovery +of gold in Cook's Inlet in 1894, no other public recorded mention of the +great mountain was made until W. A. Dickey, a Princeton graduate, +journeyed extensively in the Sushitna and Chulitna valleys in 1896 and +reached the foot of the glacier which drains one of the flanks of +Denali, called later by Doctor Cook the Ruth Glacier. Dickey described +the mountain in a letter to the New York _Sun_ in January, 1907, and +guessed its height with remarkable accuracy at twenty thousand feet. +Probably unaware that the mountain had any native name, Dickey gave it +the name of the Republican candidate for President of the United States +at that time--McKinley. Says Mr. Dickey: "We named our great peak Mount +McKinley, after William McKinley, of Ohio, the news of whose nomination +for the presidency was the first we received on our way out of that +wonderful wilderness." + +In 1898 George Eldridge and Robert Muldrow, of the United States +Geological Survey, traversed the region, and Muldrow estimated the +height of the mountain by triangulation at twenty thousand three hundred +feet. + +[Sidenote: Herron, Brooks, Wickersham] + +In 1899 Lieutenant Herron crossed the range from Cook's Inlet and +reached the Kuskokwim. It was he who named the lesser mountain of the +Denali group, always known by the natives as Denali's Wife, "Mount +Foraker," after the senator from Ohio. + +In 1902 Alfred Brooks and D. L. Raeburn made a remarkable reconnoissance +survey from the Pacific Ocean, passing through the range and along the +whole western and northwestern faces of the group. They were the first +white men to set foot upon the slopes of Denali. Shortly afterward, in +response to the interest this journey aroused among Alpine clubs, Mr. +Brooks published a pamphlet setting forth what he considered the most +feasible plan for attempting the ascent of the mountain. + +The next year saw two actual attempts at ascent. After holding the first +term of court at Fairbanks, the new town on the Tanana River that had +sprung suddenly into importance as the metropolis of Alaska upon the +discovery of the Tanana gold fields, Judge Wickersham (now delegate to +Congress) set out with four men and two mules in May, 1903, and by +steamboat ascended to the head of navigation of the Kantishna. Heading +straight across an unknown country for the base of the mountain, Judge +Wickersham's party unfortunately attacked the mountain by the Peters +Glacier and demonstrated the impossibility of that approach, being +stopped by the enormous ice-incrusted cliffs of the North Peak. Judge +Wickersham used to say that only by a balloon or a flying-machine could +the summit be reached; and, indeed, by no other means can the summit +ever be reached from the north face. After a week spent in climbing, +provisions began to run short and the party returned, descending the +rushing, turbid waters of that quite unnavigable and very dangerous +stream, the McKinley Fork of the Kantishna, on a raft, with little of +anything left to eat, and that little damaged by water. Judge Wickersham +was always keen for another attempt and often discussed the matter with +the writer, but his judicial and political activities thenceforward +occupied his time and attention to the exclusion of such enterprises. +His attempt was the first ever made to climb the mountain. + + +DOCTOR COOK'S ATTEMPTS + +About the time that Judge Wickersham was leaving the north face of the +mountain an expedition under Doctor Frederick A. Cook set out from +Tyonek, on Cook's Inlet, on the other side of the range. Doctor Cook was +accompanied by Robert Dunn, Ralph Shainwald (the "Hiram" of Dunn's +narrative), and Fred Printz, who had been chief packer for Brooks and +Raeburn, and fourteen pack-horses bore their supplies. The route +followed was that of Brooks and Raeburn, and they had the advantage of +topographical maps and forty miles of trail cut in the timber and a +guide familiar with the country. Going up the Beluga and down the +Skwentna Rivers, they crossed the range by the Simpson Pass to the south +fork of the Kuskokwim, and then skirted the base of the mountains until +a southwesterly ridge was reached which it is not very easy to locate, +but which, as Doctor Brooks judges, must have been near the headwaters +of the Tatlathna, a tributary of the Kuskokwim. Here an attempt was made +to ascend the mountain, but at eight thousand feet a chasm cut them off +from further advance. + +Pursuing their northeast course, they reached the Peters Glacier (which +Doctor Cook calls the Hanna Glacier) and stumbled across one of Judge +Wickersham's camps of a couple of months before. Here another attempt to +ascend was made, only to find progress stopped by the same stupendous +cliffs that had turned back the Wickersham party. "Over the glacier +which comes from the gap between the eastern and western peaks" (the +North and South Peaks as we speak of them), says Doctor Cook, "there was +a promising route." That is, indeed, part of the only route, but it can +be reached only by the Muldrow Glacier. "The walls of the main mountain +rise out of the Hanna (Peters) Glacier," Cook adds. The "main mountain" +has many walls; the walls by which the summit alone may be reached rise +out of the Muldrow Glacier, a circumstance that was not to be discovered +for some years yet. + +The lateness of the season now compelled immediate return. Passing still +along the face of the range in the same direction, the party crossed the +terminal moraine of the Muldrow Glacier without recognizing that it +affords the only highway to the heart of the great mountain and +recrossed the range by an ice-covered pass to the waters of the Chulitna +River, down which they rafted after abandoning their horses. Doctor Cook +calls this pass "Harper Pass," and the name should stand, for Cook was +probably the first man ever to use it. + +[Sidenote: Robert Dunn] + +The chief result of this expedition, besides the exploration of about +one hundred miles of unknown country, was the publication by Robert Dunn +of an extraordinary narrative in several consecutive numbers of +_Outing_, afterward republished in book form, with some modifications, +as "The Shameless Diary of an Explorer," a vivid but unpleasant +production, for which every squabble and jealousy of the party furnishes +literary material. The book has a curious, undeniable power, despite its +brutal frankness and its striving after "the poor renown of being +smart," and it may live. One is thankful, however, that it is unique in +the literature of travel. + +[Sidenote: Cook's Second Attempt] + +Three years later Doctor Cook organized an expedition for a second +attempt upon the mountain. In May, 1906, accompanied by Professor +Herschel Parker, Mr. Belmore Browne, a topographer named Porter, who +made some valuable maps, and packers, the party landed at the head of +Cook's Inlet and penetrated by motor-boat and by pack-train into the +Sushitna country, south of the range. Failing to cross the range at the +head of the Yentna, they spent some time in explorations along the +Kahilitna River, and, finding no avenue of approach to the heights of +the mountain, the party returned to Cook's Inlet and broke up. + +With only one companion, a packer named Edward Barrille, Cook returned +in the launch up the Chulitna River to the Tokositna late in August. "We +had already changed our mind as to the impossibility of climbing the +mountain," he writes. Ascending a glacier which the Tokositna River +drains, named by Cook the Ruth Glacier, they reached the amphitheatre at +the glacier head. From this point, "up and up to the heaven-scraped +granite of the top," Doctor Cook grows grandiloquent and vague, for at +this point his true narrative ends. + +[Illustration: Approaching the range.] + +The claims that Doctor Cook made upon his return are well known, but it +is quite impossible to follow his course from the description given in +his book, "To the Top of the Continent." This much may be said: from the +summit of the mountain, on a clear day, it seemed evident that no ascent +was possible from the south side of the range at all. That was the +judgment of all four members of our party. Doctor Cook talks about "the +heaven-scraped granite of the top" and "the dazzling whiteness of the +frosted granite blocks," and prints a photograph of the top showing +granite slabs. There is no rock of any kind on the South (the higher) +Peak above nineteen thousand feet. The last one thousand five hundred +feet of the mountain is all permanent snow and ice; nor is the +conformation of the summit in the least like the photograph printed as +the "top of Mt. McKinley." In his account of the view from the summit he +speaks of "the ice-blink caused by the extensive glacial sheets north of +the Saint Elias group," which would surely be out of the range of any +possible vision, but does not mention at all the master sight that +bursts upon the eye when the summit is actually gained--the great mass +of "Denali's Wife," or Mount Foraker, filling all the middle distance. +We were all agreed that no one who had ever stood on the top of Denali +in clear weather could fail to mention the sudden splendid sight of this +great mountain. + +But it is not worth while to pursue the subject further. The present +writer feels confident that any man who climbs to the top of Denali, and +then reads Doctor Cook's account of his ascent, will not need Edward +Barrille's affidavit to convince him that Cook's narrative is untrue. +Indignation is, however, swallowed up in pity when one thinks upon the +really excellent pioneering and exploring work done by this man, and +realizes that the immediate success of the imposition about the ascent +of Denali doubtless led to the more audacious imposition about the +discovery of the North Pole--and that to his discredit and downfall. + + +THE PIONEER ASCENT + +Although Cook's claim to have reached the summit of Denali met with +general acceptance outside, or at least was not openly scouted, it was +otherwise in Alaska. The men, in particular, who lived and worked in the +placer-mining regions about the base of the mountain, and were, perhaps, +more familiar with the orography of the range than any surveyor or +professed topographer, were openly incredulous. Upon the appearance of +Doctor Cook's book, "To the Top of the Continent," in 1908, the writer +well remembers the eagerness with which his copy (the only one in +Fairbanks) was perused by man after man from the Kantishna diggings, and +the acute way in which they detected the place where vague "fine +writing" began to be substituted for definite description. + +Some of these men, convinced that the ascent had never been made, +conceived the purpose of proving it in the only way in which it could be +proved--by making the ascent themselves. They were confident that an +enterprise which had now baffled several parties of "scientists," +equipped with all sorts of special apparatus, could be accomplished by +Alaskan "sourdoughs" with no special equipment at all. There seems also +to have entered into the undertaking a naive notion that in some way or +other large money reward would follow a successful ascent. + +The enterprise took form under Thomas Lloyd, who managed to secure the +financial backing of McPhee and Petersen, saloon-keepers of Fairbanks, +and Griffin, a wholesale liquor dealer of Chena. These three men are +said to have put up five hundred dollars apiece, and the sum thus raised +sufficed for the needs of the party. In February 1910, therefore, Thomas +Lloyd, Charles McGonogill, William Taylor, Peter Anderson, and Bob +Horne, all experienced prospectors and miners, and E. C. Davidson, a +surveyor, now the surveyor-general of Alaska, set out from Fairbanks, +and by 1st March had established a base camp at the mouth of Cache +Creek, within the foot-hills of the range. + +Here Davidson and Horne left the party after a disagreement with Lloyd. +The loss of Davidson was a fatal blow to anything beyond a "sporting" +ascent, for he was the only man in the party with any scientific bent, +or who knew so much as the manipulation of a photographic camera. + +[Sidenote: The Sourdough Climb] + +The Lloyd expedition was the first to discover the only approach by +which the mountain may be climbed. Mr. Alfred Brooks, Mr. Robert +Muldrow, and Doctor Cook had passed the snout of the Muldrow Glacier +without realizing that it turned and twisted and led up until it gave +access to the ridge by which alone the upper glacier or Grand Basin can +be reached and the summits gained. From observations while hunting +mountain-sheep upon the foot-hills for years past, Lloyd had already +satisfied himself of this prime fact; had found the key to the +complicated orography of the great mass. Lloyd had previously crossed +the range with horses in this neighborhood by an easy pass that led +"from willows to willows" in eighteen miles. Pete Anderson had come into +the Kantishna country this way and had crossed and recrossed the range +by this pass no less than eleven times. + +McGonogill, following quartz leads upon the high mountains of Moose +Creek, had traced from his aerie the course of the Muldrow Glacier, and +had satisfied himself that within the walls of that glacier the route +would be found. And, indeed, when he had us up there and pointed out the +long stretch of the parallel walls it was plain to us also that they +held the road to the heights. From the point where he had perched his +tiny hut, a stone's throw from his tunnel, how splendidly the mountain +rose and the range stretched out! + +These men thus started with the great advantage of a knowledge of the +mountain, and their plan for climbing it was the first that contained +the possibility of success. + +From the base camp Anderson and McGonogill scouted among the foot-hills +of the range for some time before they discovered the pass that gives +easy access to the Muldrow Glacier. On 25th March the party had +traversed the glacier and reached its head with dogs and supplies. A +camp was made on the ridge, while further prospecting was carried on +toward the upper glacier. This was the farthest point that Lloyd +reached. On 10th April, Taylor, Anderson, and McGonogill set out about +two in the morning with great climbing-irons strapped to their moccasins +and hooked pike-poles in their hands. Disdaining the rope and cutting no +steps, it was "every man for himself," with reliance solely upon the +_crampons_. They went up the ridge to the Grand Basin, crossed the ice +to the North Peak, and proceeded to climb it, carrying the fourteen-foot +flagstaff with them. Within perhaps five hundred feet of the summit, +McGonogill, outstripped by Taylor and Anderson, and fearful of the +return over the slippery ice-incrusted rocks if he went farther, turned +back, but Taylor and Anderson reached the top (about twenty thousand +feet above the sea) and firmly planted the flagstaff, which is there +yet. + +[Sidenote: Lloyd and McGonogill] + +This is the true narrative of a most extraordinary feat, unique--the +writer has no hesitation in claiming--in all the annals of +mountaineering. He has been at the pains of talking with every member of +the actual climbing party with a view to sifting the matter thoroughly. + +For, largely by the fault of these men themselves, through a mistaken +though not unchivalrous sense of loyalty to the organizer of the +expedition, much incredulity was aroused in Alaska touching their +exploit. It was most unfortunate that any mystery was made about the +details, most unfortunate that in the newspaper accounts false claims +were set up. Surely the merest common sense should have dictated that in +the account of an ascent undertaken with the prime purpose of proving +that Doctor Cook had _not_ made the ascent, and had falsified his +narrative, everything should be frank and aboveboard; but it was not so. + +A narrative, gathered from Lloyd himself and agreed to by the others, +was reduced to writing by Mr. W. E. Thompson, an able journalist of +Fairbanks, and was sold to a newspaper syndicate. The account the writer +has examined was "featured" in the New York Sunday _Times_ of the 5th +June, 1910. + +In that account Lloyd is made to claim unequivocally that he himself +reached both summits of the mountain. "There were two summits and we +climbed them both"; and again, "When I reached the coast summit" are +reported in quotation marks as from his lips. As a matter of fact, Lloyd +himself reached neither summit, nor was much above the glacier floor; +and the south or coast summit, the higher of the two, was not attempted +by the party at all. There is no question that the party _could_ have +climbed the South Peak, though by reason of its greater distance it is +safe to say that it could not have been reached, as the North Peak was, +in one march from the ridge camp. It must have involved a camp in the +Grand Basin with all the delay and the labor of relaying the stuff up +there. But the men who accomplished the astonishing feat of climbing the +North Peak, in one almost superhuman march from the saddle of the +Northeast Ridge, could most certainly have climbed the South Peak too. + +[Sidenote: The North Peak] + +They did not attempt it for two reasons, first, because they wanted to +plant their fourteen-foot flagstaff where it could be seen through a +telescope from Fairbanks, one hundred and fifty miles away, as they +fondly supposed, and, second, because not until they had reached the +summit of the North Peak did they realize that the South Peak is higher. +They told the writer that upon their return to the floor of the _upper_ +glacier they were greatly disappointed to find that their flagstaff was +not visible to them. It is, indeed, only just visible with the naked eye +from certain points on the upper glacier and quite invisible at any +lower or more distant point. Walter Harper has particularly keen sight, +and he was well up in the Grand Basin, at nearly seventeen thousand feet +altitude, sitting and scanning the sky-line of the North Peak, seeking +for the pole, when he caught sight of it and pointed it out. The writer +was never sure that he saw it with the naked eye, though Karstens and +Tatum did so as soon as Walter pointed it out, but through the +field-glasses it was plain and prominent and unmistakable. + +When we came down to the Kantishna diggings and announced to the men who +planted it that we had seen the flagstaff, there was a feeling expressed +that the climbing party of the previous summer must have seen it also +and had suppressed mention of it; but there is no ground whatever for +such a damaging assumption. It would never be seen with the naked eye +save by those who were intently searching for it. Professor Parker and +Mr. Belmore Browne entertained the pretty general incredulity about the +"Pioneer" ascent, perhaps too readily, certainly too confidently; but +the men themselves must bear the chief blame for that. The writer and +his party, knowing these men much better, had never doubt that _some_ of +them had accomplished what was claimed, and these details have been gone +into for no other reason than that honor may at last be given where +honor is due. + +[Sidenote: Pete Anderson and Billy Taylor] + +To Lloyd belongs the honor of conceiving and organizing the attempt but +not of accomplishing it. To him probably also belongs the original +discovery of the route that made the ascent possible. To McGonogill +belongs the credit of discovering the pass, probably the only pass, by +which the glacier may be reached without following it from its snout up, +a long and difficult journey; and to him also the credit of climbing +some nineteen thousand five hundred feet, or to within five hundred feet +of the North Peak. But to Pete Anderson and Billy Taylor, two of the +strongest men, physically, in all the North, and to none other, belongs +the honor of the first ascent of the North Peak and the planting of what +must assuredly be the highest flagstaff in the world. The North Peak has +never since been climbed or attempted. + + * * * * * + +In the summer of the same year, 1910, Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore +Browne, members of the second Cook party, convinced by this time that +Cook's claim was wholly unfounded, attempted the mountain again, and +another party, organized by Mr. C. E. Rust, of Portland, Oregon, also +endeavored the ascent. But both these expeditions confined themselves to +the hopeless southern side of the range, from which, in all probability, +the mountain never can be climbed. + + +THE PARKER-BROWNE EXPEDITION + +To a man living in the interior of Alaska, aware of the outfitting and +transportation facilities which the large commerce of Fairbanks affords, +aware of the navigable waterways that penetrate close to the foot-hills +of the Alaskan range, aware also of the amenities of the interior slope +with its dry, mild climate, its abundance of game and rich pasturage +compared with the trackless, lifeless snows of the coast slopes, there +seems a strange fatuity in the persistent efforts to approach the +mountain from the southern side of the range. + +It is morally certain that if the only expedition that remains to be +dealt with--that organized by Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore Browne in +1912, which came within an ace of success--had approached the mountain +from the interior instead of from the coast, it would have forestalled +us and accomplished the first complete ascent. + +The difficulties of the coast approach have been described graphically +enough by Robert Dunn in the summer and by Belmore Browne himself in the +winter. There are no trails; the snow lies deep and loose and falls +continually, or else the whole country is bog and swamp. There is no +game. + +[Sidenote: Parker and Browne] + +The Parker-Browne expedition left Seward, on Resurrection Bay, late in +January, 1912, and after nearly three months' travel, relaying their +stuff forward, they crossed the range under extreme difficulties, being +seventeen days above any vegetation, and reached the northern face of +the mountain on 25th March. The expedition either missed the pass near +the foot of the Muldrow Glacier, well known to the Kantishna miners, by +which it is possible to cross from willows to willows in eighteen miles, +or else avoided it in the vain hope of finding another. They then went +to the Kantishna diggings and procured supplies and topographical +information from the miners, and were thus able to follow the course of +the Lloyd party of 1910, reaching the Muldrow Glacier by the gap in the +glacier wall discovered by McGonogill and named McPhee Pass by him. + +Mr. Belmore Browne has written a lucid and stirring account of the +ascent which his party made. We were fortunate enough to secure a copy +of the magazine in which it appeared just before leaving Fairbanks, and +he had been good enough to write a letter in response to our inquiries +and to enclose a sketch map. Our course was almost precisely the same as +that of the Parker-Browne party up to seventeen thousand feet, and the +course of that party was precisely the same as that of the Lloyd party +up to fifteen thousand feet. There is only one way up the mountain, and +Lloyd and his companions discovered it. The earthquake had enormously +increased the labor of the ascent; it had not altered the route. + +A reconnoissance of the Muldrow Glacier to its head and a long spell of +bad weather delayed the party so much that it was the 4th June before +the actual ascent was begun--a very late date indeed; more than a month +later than our date and nearly three months later than the "Pioneer" +date. It is rarely that the mountain is clear after the 1st June; almost +all the summer through its summit is wrapped in cloud. From the junction +of the Tanana and Yukon Rivers it is often visible for weeks at a time +during the winter, but is rarely seen at all after the ice goes out. A +close watch kept by friends at Tanana (the town at the confluence of the +rivers) discovered the summit on the day we reached it and the following +day (the 7th and 8th June) but not for three weeks before and not at all +afterward; from which it does not follow, however, that the summit was +not visible momentarily, or at certain hours of the day, but only that +it was not visible for long enough to be observed. The rapidity with +which that summit shrouds and clears itself is sometimes marvellous. + +As is well known, the Parker-Browne party pushed up the Northeast Ridge +and the upper glacier and made a first attack upon the summit itself, +from a camp at seventeen thousand feet, on the 29th June. When within +three or four hundred feet of the top they were overwhelmed and driven +down, half frozen, by a blizzard that suddenly arose. On the 1st July +another attempt was made, but the clouds ascended and completely +enveloped the party in a cold, wind-driven mist so that retreat to camp +was again imperative. Only those who have experienced bad weather at +great heights can understand how impossible it is to proceed in the face +of it. The strongest, the hardiest, the most resolute must yield. The +party could linger no longer; food supplies were exhausted. They broke +camp and went down the mountain. + +The falling short of complete success of this very gallant +mountaineering attempt seems to have been due, first to the mistake of +approaching the mountain by the most difficult route, so that it was +more than five months after starting that the actual climbing began; or, +if the survey made justified, and indeed decided, the route, then the +summit was sacrificed to the survey. But the immediate cause of the +failure was the mistake of relying upon canned pemmican for the main +food supply. This provision, hauled with infinite labor from the coast, +and carried on the backs of the party to the high levels of the +mountain, proved uneatable and useless at the very time when it was +depended upon for subsistence. There is no finer big-game country in the +world than that around the interior slopes of the Alaskan range; there +is no finer meat in the world than caribou and mountain-sheep. It is +carrying coals to Newcastle to bring canned meat into this +country--nature's own larder stocked with her choicest supplies. But if, +attempting the mountain when they did, the Parker-Browne party had +remained two or three days longer in the Grand Basin, which they would +assuredly have done had their food been eatable, their bodies would be +lying up there yet or would be crushed beneath the debris of the +earthquake on the ridge. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE NAMES PLACED UPON THE MOUNTAIN BY THE AUTHOR + + +There was no intent of putting names at all upon any portions of this +mountain when the expedition was undertaken, save that the author had it +in his mind to honor the memory of a very noble and very notable +gentlewoman who gave ten years of her life to the Alaskan natives, set +on foot one of the most successful educational agencies in the interior, +and died suddenly and heroically at her post of duty a few years since, +leaving a broad and indelible mark upon the character of a generation of +Indians. Miss Farthing lies buried high up on the bluffs opposite the +school at Nenana, in a spot she was wont to visit for the fine view of +Denali it commands, and her brother, the present bishop of Montreal, and +some of her colleagues of the Alaskan mission, have set a concrete cross +there. When we entered the Alaskan range by Cache Creek there rose +directly before us a striking pyramidal peak, some twelve or thirteen +thousand feet high. Not knowing that any name had been bestowed upon it, +the author discharged himself of the duty that he conceived lay upon him +of associating Miss Farthing's name permanently with the mountain range +she loved and the country in which she labored. But he has since learned +that Professor Parker placed upon this mountain, a year before, the name +of Alfred Brooks, of the Alaskan Geological Survey. Apart from the +priority of naming, to which, of course, he would immediately yield, the +author knows of no one whose name should so fitly be placed upon a peak +of the Alaskan range, and he would himself resist any effort to change +it. + +Having gratified this desire, as he supposed, there had meantime arisen +another desire,--upon reading the narrative of the Parker-Browne +expedition of the previous year, a copy of which we were fortunate +enough to procure just as we were starting for the mountain. It was the +feeling of our whole company that the names of Professor Parker and Mr. +Belmore Browne should be associated with the mountain they so very +nearly ascended. + +When the eyes are cast aloft from the head of the Muldrow Glacier the +most conspicuous feature of the view is a rudely conical tower of +granite, standing sentinel over the entrance to the Grand Basin, and at +the base of that tower is the pass into the upper glacier which is, +indeed, the key of the whole ascent of the mountain. (See illustration +opposite p. 40.) + +[Sidenote: Tower, Pass, and Ridge] + +We found no better place to set these names; we called the tower the +Browne Tower and the pass the Parker Pass. The "pass" may not, it is +true, conform to any strict Alpine definition of that term, but it gives +the only access to the glacier floor. From the ridge below to the +glacier above this place gives passage; and any place that gives passage +may broadly be termed a pass. + +It was when this pass had been reached, after three weeks' toil, that +the author was moved to the bestowal of another name by his admiration +for the skill and pluck and perseverance of his chief colleague in the +ascent. Those who think that a long apprenticeship must be served under +skilled instructors before command of the technique of snow +mountaineering can be obtained would have been astonished at Karstens's +work on the Northeast Ridge. But it must be kept in mind that, while he +had no previous experience on the heights, he had many years of +experience with ice and snow--which is true of all of us except Tatum, +and _he_ had two winters' experience. In the course of winter travel in +the interior of Alaska most of the problems of snow mountaineering +present themselves at one time or another. + +[Sidenote: Glacier] + +The designation "Northeast," which the Parker-Browne party put upon the +ridge that affords passage from the lower glacier to the upper, is open +to question. Mr. Charles Sheldon, who spent a year around the base of +the mountain studying the fauna of the region, refers to the _outer_ +wall of the Muldrow Glacier as the Northeast Ridge, that is, the wall +that rises to the North Peak. Perhaps "East Ridge of the South Peak" +would be the most exact description. But it is here proposed to +substitute Harry Karstens's name for points-of-the-compass designations, +and call the ridge, part of which the earthquake shattered, the dividing +ridge between the two arms of the Muldrow Glacier, soaring tremendously +and impressively with ice-incrusted cliffs in its lower course, the +Karstens Ridge. Regarded in its whole extent, it is one of the capital +features of the mountain. It is seen to the left in the picture opposite +page 26, where Karstens stands alone. At this point of its course it +soars to its greatest elevation, five or six thousand feet above the +glacier floor; it is seen again in the middle distance of the picture +opposite page 164. + +Not until this book was in preparation and the author was digging into +the literature of the mountain did he discover the interesting +connection of Arthur Harper, father of Walter Harper, narrated in +another place, with Denali, and not until that discovery did he think of +suggesting the name Harper for any feature of the mountain, despite the +distinction that fell to the young man of setting the first foot upon +the summit. Then the upper glacier appeared to be the most appropriate +place for the name, and, after reflection, it is deemed not improper to +ask that this glacier be so known. + +It has thus fallen out that each of the author's colleagues is +distinguished by some name upon the mountain except Robert Tatum. But to +Tatum belongs the honor of having raised the stars and stripes for the +first time upon the highest point in all the territory governed by the +United States; and he is well content with that distinction. Keen as the +keenest amongst us to reach the top, Tatum had none the less been +entirely willing to give it up and go down to the base camp and let +Johnny take his place (when he was unwell at the head of the glacier +owing to long confinement in the tent during bad weather), if in the +judgment of the writer that had been the wisest course for the whole +party. Fortunately the indisposition passed, and the matter is referred +to only as indicating the spirit of the man. I suppose there is no money +that could buy from him the little silk flag he treasures. + +It was also while this book was preparing that the author found that he +had unwittingly renamed Mount Brooks, and the prompt withdrawal of his +suggested name for that peak left the one original desire of naming a +feature of the mountain or the range ungratified, and his obligation +toward a revered memory unfulfilled. + +[Sidenote: Horns of the South Peak] + +Where else might that name be placed? For a long time no place suggested +itself; then it was called to mind that the two horns at the extremities +of the horseshoe ridge of the South Peak were unnamed. Here were twin +peaks, small, yet lofty and conspicuous--part of the main summit of the +mountain. The naming of one almost carried with it the naming of the +other; and as soon as the name Farthing alighted, so to speak, from his +mind upon the one, the name Carter settled itself upon the other. In the +long roll of women who have labored devotedly for many years amongst the +natives of the interior of Alaska, there are no brighter names than +those of Miss Annie Farthing and Miss Clara Carter, the one forever +associated with Nenana, the other with the Allakaket. To those who are +familiar with what has been done and what is doing for the Indians of +the interior, to the white men far and wide who have owed recovery of +health and relief and refreshment to the ministrations of these capable +women, this naming will need no labored justification; and if +self-sacrifice and love, and tireless, patient labor for the good of +others be indeed the greatest things in the world, then the mountain top +bearing aloft these names does not so much do honor as is itself +dignified and ennobled. These horns of the South Peak are shown in the +picture opposite page 94; they are of almost equal height; the near one +the author would name the Farthing Horn, the far one the Carter Horn. + +[Sidenote: Denali and His Wife] + +And now the author finds that he has done what, in the past, he has +faulted others for doing--he has plastered a mountain with names. The +prerogative of name-giving is a dangerous one, without definite laws or +limitations. Nothing but common consent and usage ultimately establish +names, but he to whom falls the first exploration of a country, or the +first ascent of a peak, is usually accorded privilege of nomenclature. +Yet it is a privilege that is often abused and should be exercised with +reserve. Whether or not it has been overdone in the present case, others +must say. This, however, the author will say, and would say as +emphatically as is in his power: that he sets no store whatever by the +names he has ventured to confer comparable with that which he sets by +the restoration of the ancient native names of the whole great mountain +and its companion peak. + +It may be that the Alaskan Indians are doomed; it may be that the liquor +and disease which to-day are working havoc amongst them will destroy +them off the face of the earth; it is common to meet white men who +assume it with complacency. Those who are fighting for the natives with +all their hearts and souls do not believe it, cannot believe it, cannot +believe that this will be the end of all their efforts, that any such +blot will foul the escutcheon of the United States. But if it be so, let +at least the memorial of their names remain. When the inhabited +wilderness has become an uninhabited wilderness, when the only people +who will ever make their homes in it are exterminated, when the +placer-gold is gone and the white men have gone also, when the last +interior Alaskan town is like Diamond City and Glacier City and Bearpaw +City and Roosevelt City; and Bettles and Rampart and Coldfoot; and +Cleary City and Delta City and Vault City and a score of others; let at +least the native names of these great mountains remain to show that +there once dwelt in the land a simple, hardy race who braved +successfully the rigors of its climate and the inhospitality of their +environment and flourished, until the septic contact of a superior race +put corruption into their blood. So this book shall end as it began. + +[Illustration: Map Showing Route of the Stuck-Karstens Expedition to the +Summit of Mt. Denali (Mt. McKinley.) 1913] + + + Transcriber's Notes + + Sidenotes were created from the unique headers on alternate pages of + the original text, with some minor amendments. + + The following typos were corrected: + + corrected: original: on page: + + Iditarod Iditerod 5 + La Voy LeVoy 41 + La Voy Le Voy 97 (in footnote) + whatna whatna' 63 (twice) + nor or 103 + Revillagigedo Revillegigedo 142 + page 94 page 96 186 + + All Native American words were left with the accents given them + intact. + + On page 38 a possible missing word "he" was not added due to + uncertainty about the author's intentions: "... but the dogs must be + tended, and the main food for them [he?] was yet to seek...." + + The five instances of "base-camp" were changed to comply with common + usage: "base camp." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley), by +Hudson Stuck + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ASCENT OF DENALI *** + +***** This file should be named 26059.txt or 26059.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/5/26059/ + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Louise Blyton, Brian Janes +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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