MOUNT RAINIER 



yet, when traced to their sources, they are found to 

 originate in widely different ways. The north branch, 

 named Ingraham Glacier (after Maj. E. S. Ingraham, 

 one of Rainier's foremost pioneers), comes from the 

 neves on the summit ; while the south branch heads in 

 a pocket immediately under Gibraltar. No snow 

 comes to it from the summit ; hence we can not escape 

 the conclusion that it receives through direct precipita- 

 tion and through wind drifting about as much snow as 

 its sister branch receives from the summit regions. 

 Like the glacier troughs below, the pocket appears to 

 have widened laterally under the influence of the ice, 

 and is now separated from the Nisqually ice fields to 

 the west by only a narrow rock partition, the Cowlitz 

 Cleaver, as it is locally called. Up this narrow crest 

 the route to Gibraltar Rock ascends. The name 

 "cleaver," it may be said in passing, is most apt for 

 the designation of a narrow rock crest of this sort, and 

 well deserves to be more generally used in the place of 

 awkward foreign terms, such as arrete and grat. 



Both branches of the Cowlitz Glacier cascade steeply 

 immediately above their confluence, but the lower glacier 

 has a gentle gradient and a fairly uneventful course. 

 Like the lower Nisqually, it is bordered by long morainal 

 ridges, and toward its end acquires broad marginal dirt 

 bands. For nearly a mile these continue, leaving a 

 gradually narrowing lane of clear ice between them. 

 Then they coalesce and the whole ice body becomes 

 strewn with rock debris. 



The Cowlitz Glacier, including its north branch, the 

 Ingraham Glacier, measures slightly over 6 miles in 

 length. Throughout that distance the ice stream lies 

 sunk in a steep-walled canyon of its own carving. Im- 

 posing cliffs of columnar basalt, ribbed as if draped in 

 corduroy, overlook its lower course. Slender water- 

 falls glide down their precipitous fronts, like silver 

 threads, guided by the basalt flutings. 



From the end of the glacier issues the Muddy Fork 



