THE GLACIERS OF MT. RAINIER 



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



THE impression still prevails in between 4 and 6 miles long and vie in 

 many quarters that true glaciers, magnitude and in splendor with the 

 such as are found in the Swiss most boasted glaciers of the Alps. 

 Alps, do not exist within the Cascading from the summit in all 

 confines of the Unites States, and that directions, they radiate like the arms of a 

 to behold one of these rare scenic fea- great starfish. All reach down to the 

 tures one must go to Switzerland, or foot of the mountain and some advance 

 else to the less accessible Canadian considerably beyond. 

 Rockies or the inhospitable Alaskan As for the plea that these glaciers lie 

 coast. As a matter of fact, permanent in a scarcely opened, out-of-the-way 

 bodies of snow and ice, large enough to region, a forbidding wilderness as corn- 

 deserve the name of glaciers, occur on pared with maturely civilized Switzer- 

 many of our western mountain chains, land, it no longer has the force it once 

 notably in the Rocky Mountains, where possessed. Rainier's ice fields can now 

 only recently a national reservation be reached from Seattle or Tacoma, the 

 Glacier National Park was named for two principal cities of western Washing- 

 its ice fields; in the Sierra Nevada of ton, in a comfortable day's journeying, 

 California, and farther north, in the either by rail or by automobile. The 

 Cascade Range. It is on the last- cooling sight of crevassed glaciers and 

 named mountain chain that glaciers the exhilarating flower-scented air of 

 especially abound, clustering as a rule alpine meadows need no longer be 

 in groups about the higher summits of exclusive pleasures, to be gained only by 

 the crest. But this range also supports a trip abroad. 



a series of huge, extinct volcanoes that Mount Rainier stands on the west 



tower high above its sky line in the form edge of the Cascade Range, overlooking 



of isolated cones. On these the snows the lowlands that stretch to Puget 



lie deepest and the glaciers reach their Sound. Seen from Seattle or Tacoma, 



grandest development. Ice clad from 60 and 50 miles distant, respectively, it 



head to foot the year round, these giant appears to rise directly from sea level, 



peaks have become known the country so insignificant seem the ridges about its 



over as the noblest landmarks of the base. Yet these ridges themselves are 



Pacific Northwest. Foremost among of no mean height. They rise 3,000 to 



them are Mount Shasta, in California 4,000 feet above the valleys that cut 



(14,162 feet); Mount Hood, in Oregon through them, and their crests average 



(11,225 feet); Mount St. Helens (9,697 6,000 feet in altitude. From the top of 



feet), Mount Adams (12,307 feet), the volcano one fairly looks down upon 



Mount Rainier (14,408 feet), and Mount the Tatoosh Range, to the south; upon 



Baker (10,730 feet), in the State of Mount Wow, to the southwest; upon the 



Washington. Mother Mountains, to the northwest, 



Easily king of all is Mount Rainier, indeed, upon all the ridges of the Cas- 



Almost 250 feet higher than Mount cade Range. Only Mount Adams, 



Shasta, its nearest rival in grandeur and Mount St. Helens, and Mount Hood 



in mass, it is overwhelmingly impressive, loom like solitary peaks above the even 



both the vastness of its glacial mantle sky line, while the ridges below this line 



and by the striking sculpture of its cliffs, seem to melt together in one vast, con- 



The total area of its glaciers amounts to tinuous mountain platform. And such 



no less than 45 square miles, an ex- a platform, indeed, one should conceive 



panse of ice far exceeding that of any the Cascade Range once to have been, 



other single peak in the United States. Only it is now thoroughly dissected by> 



Many of its individual ice streams are profound, ramifying valleys, and has> 



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