"The Stickeen Glaciers 



in the imperfect light seemed as large as the river, 

 about one hundred and fifty feet wide, and perhaps 

 three or four feet deep. A little farther up it was only 

 about fifty feet wide and rushing on with impetuous 

 roaring force in its rocky channel, sweeping forward 

 sand, gravel, cobblestones, and boulders, the bump 

 and rumble sounds of the largest of these rolling stones 

 being readily heard in the midst of the roaring. It was 

 too swift and rough to ford, and no bridge tree could 

 be found, for the great floods had cleared everything 

 out of their way. I was therefore compelled to keep on 

 up the right bank, however difficult the way. Where a 

 strip of bare boulders lined the margin, the walking 

 was easy, but where the current swept close along the 

 ragged edge of the forest, progress was difficult and 

 slow on account of snow-crinkled and interlaced 

 thickets of alder and willow, reinforced with fallen 

 trees and thorny devil's-club (Echino-panax horridum), 

 making a jungle all but impenetrable. The mile of 

 this extravagantly difficult growth through which I 

 struggled, inch by inch, will not soon be forgotten. At 

 length arriving within a few hundred yards of the 

 glacier, full of panax barbs, I found that both the 

 glacier and its unfordable stream were pressing hard 

 against a shelving cliff, dangerously steep, leaving no 

 margin, and compelling me to scramble along its face 

 before I could get on to the glacier. But by sunrise all 

 these cliff, jungle, and torrent troubles were over- 

 come and I gladly found myself free on the magnifi- 

 cent ice-river. 



The curving, out-bulging front of the glacier is 



[99] 



