MOUNT RAINIER 



ice fields to the east, form the Fryingpan River, a 

 brisk stream that joins White River several miles 

 farther north. 



Below the Fryingpan Glacier there lies a region of 

 charming flower-dotted meadows named Summer- 

 land, a most attractive spot for camping. 



Cloaking almost the entire east side of Mount Rainier 

 is the Emmons Glacier, the most extensive ice stream 

 on the peak (named after Samuel F. Emmons, the 

 geologist and mountaineer who was the second to 

 conquer the peak in 1870). About 5-J miles long and 

 if miles wide in its upper half, it covers almost 8 

 square miles of territory. It makes a continuous 

 descent from the summit to the base, the rim of the old 

 crater having almost completely broken down under 

 its heavy neve cascades. But two small remnants of 

 the rim still protrude through the ice and divide it into 

 three cascades. From each of these dark rock islands 

 trails a long medial moraine that extends in an ever- 

 broadening band down to the foot of the glacier. 



Conspicuous lateral moraines accompany the ice 

 stream on each side. There are several parallel ridges 

 of this sort, disposed in successive tiers above each 

 other on the valley sides. Most impressively do they 

 attest the extent of the Emmons Glacier's recent shrink- 

 ing. The youngest moraine, fresh looking as if de- 

 posited only yesterday, lies but 50 feet above the glacier's 

 surface and a scant 100 feet distant from its edge ; the 

 older ridges, subdued in outline, and already tinged 

 with verdure, lie several hundred feet higher on the 

 slope. 



The Emmons Glacier, like the Nisqually and the 

 Cowlitz, becomes densely littered with morainal debris 

 at its lower end, maintaining, however, for a consider- 

 able distance a central lane of clear ice. The stream 

 which it sends forth, White River, is the largest of 

 all the ice-fed streams radiating from the peak. It 

 flows northward and then turns in a northwesterly 



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