THE GLACIERS OF MT. RAINIER 



By F. E. Matthes, United States Geological Survey. 



THE impression still prevails in 

 many quarters that true glaciers, 

 such as are found in the Swiss 

 Alps, do not exist within the 

 confines of the Unites States, and that 

 to behold one of these rare scenic fea- 

 tures one must go to Switzerland, or 

 else to the less accessible Canadian 

 Rockies or the inhospitable Alaskan 

 coast. As a matter of fact, permanent 

 bodies of snow and ice, large enough to 

 deserve the name of glaciers, occur on 

 many of our western mountain chains, 

 notably in the Rocky Mountains, where 

 only recently a national reservation — 

 Glacier National Park — was named for 

 its ice fields; in the Sierra Nevada of 

 California, and farther north, in the 

 Cascade Range. It is on the last- 

 named mountain Chain that glaciers 

 especially abound, clustering as a rule 

 in groups about the higher summits of 

 the crest. But this range also supports 

 a series of huge, extinct volcanoes that 

 tower high above its sky line in the form 

 of isolated cones. On these the snows 

 lie deepest and the glaciers reach their 

 grandest development. Ice clad from 

 head to foot the year round, these giant 

 peaks have become known the country 

 over as the noblest landmarks of the 

 Pacific Northwest. Foremost among 

 them are Mount Shasta, in California 

 (14,162 feet); Mount Hood, in Oregon 

 (11,225 feet); Mount St. Helens (9,697 

 feet), Mount Adams (12,307 feet). 

 Mount Rainier (14,408 feet), and Mount 

 Baker (10,730 feet), in the State of 

 Washington. 



Easily king of all is Mount Rainier. 

 Almost 250 feet higher than Mount 

 Shasta, its nearest rival in grandeur and 

 in mass, it is overwhelmingly impressive, 

 both the vastness of its glacial mantle 

 and by the striking sculpture of its cliffs. 

 The total area of its glaciers amounts to 

 no less than 45 square miles, an ex- 

 panse of ice far exceeding that of any 

 other single peak in the United States. 

 Many of its individual ice streams are 



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between 4 and 6 miles long and vie in 

 magnitude and in splendor with the 

 most boasted glaciers of the Alps. 

 Cascading from the summit in all 

 directions, they radiate like the arms of a 

 great starfish. All reach down to the 

 foot of the mountain and some advance 

 considerably beyond. 



As for the plea that these glaciers lie 

 in a scarcely opened, out-of-the-way 

 region, a forbidding wilderness as com- 

 pared with maturely civilized Switzer- 

 land, it no longer has the force it once 

 possessed. Rainier 's ice fields can now 

 be reached from Seattle or Tacoma, the 

 two principal cities of western Washing- 

 ton, in a comfortable day's journeying, 

 either by rail or by automobile. The 

 cooling sight of crevassed glaciers and 

 the exhilarating flower-scented air of 

 alpine meadows need no longer be 

 exclusive pleasures, to be gained only by 

 a trip abroad. 



Mount Rainier stands on the west 

 edge of the Cascade Range, overlooking 

 the lowlands that stretch to Puget 

 Sound. Seen from Seattle or Tacoma, 

 60 and 50 miles distant, respectively, it 

 appears to rise directly from sea level, 

 so insignificant seem the ridges about its 

 base. Yet these ridges themselves are 

 of no mean height. They rise 3,000 to 

 4,000 feet above the valleys that cut 

 through them, and their crests average 

 6,000 feet in altitude. From the top of 

 the volcano one fairly looks down upon 

 the Tatoosh Range, to the south; upon 

 Mount Wow, to the southwest ; upon the 

 Mother Mountains, to the northwest, 

 indeed, upon all the ridges of the Cas- 

 cade Range. Only Moimt Adams, 

 Mount St. Helens, and Mount Hood 

 loom like solitary peaks above the even 

 sky line, while the ridges below this line 

 seem to melt together in one vast, con- 

 tinuous mountain platform. And such 

 a platform, indeed, one should conceive 

 the Cascade Range once to have been. 

 Only it is now thoroughly dissected by 

 profound, ramifying valleys, and has 



