656 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



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 

 to\vard 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. Imposing cliffs of colum- 

 nar basalt, ribbed as if draped in cordu- 

 roy, overlook its lower course. Slender 

 waterfalls glide down their precipitous 

 fronts, like silver threads, guided by the 

 basalt flutings. 



OHANAPECOSH AND FRYINGPAN GLACIERS 



High above the Ingraham Glacier 

 towers that sharp, residual mass of lava 

 strata known as Little Tahoma (11,117 

 feet), the highest outstanding eminence 

 on the flank of Mount Rainier. It 

 forms a gigantic "wedge" that divides 

 the Ingraham from the Emmons Glacier 

 to the north. So extensive is this wedge 

 that it carries on its back several large 

 ice fields and interglaciers, some of 

 which, lying far from the beaten path of 

 the tourist, are as yet unnamed. Sep- 

 arating them from each other are 

 various attenuated, pinnacled crests, all 

 of them subordinate to a main backbone 

 that runs eastward some 6 miles and 

 terminates in the Cowlitz Chimneys 

 (7,607 feet), a group of tall, rock towers 

 that dominate the landscape on the 

 east side of Mount Rainier. 



Most of the ice fields, naturally, lie 

 on the shady north slope of the main 

 backbone; in fact, a series of them 

 extends as far east as the Cowlitz 

 Chimneys. One of the lesser crests, 

 however, that running southeastward 

 to the upland region known as Cowlitz 

 Park, also gives protection to an ice 



body of some magnitude, the Ohana- 

 pecosh Glacier. Condiserably broader 

 than it is long in the direction of its flow, 

 this glacier lies on a high shelf a mile and 

 a half across, whence it cascades down 

 into the head of a walled-in canyon. 

 Formerly, no doubt, it more than filled 

 this canyon, but now it sends down only 

 a shrunken lobe. The stream that 

 issues from it, the Ohanapecosh River, 

 is really the main prong and head of the 

 Cowlitz River. 



The largest and most elevated of the 

 ice fields east of Little Tahoma is known 

 for its peculiar shape as Fryingpan 

 Glacier. It covers fully 3 square miles 

 of ground and constitutes the most 

 extensive and most beautiful inter- 

 glacier on Mount Rainier. It originates 

 in the hollow east side of Little Tahoma 

 itself and descends rapidly northward, 

 overlooking the great Emmons Glacier 

 and finally reaching down almost to is 

 level. It is not a long time since the 

 two ice bodies were confluent. 



Below the Fryingpan Glacier there lies 

 a region of charming flower-dotted 

 meadows named Summerland, a most 

 attractive spot for camping. 



EMMONS GLACIER. 1 



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^ miles long and 1% 

 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. 



The Emmons Glacier, like the Nis- 

 qually and the Cowlitz, becomes densely 

 littered with morainal debris at its lower 

 end, maintaining, however, for a con- 



This glacier is also known locally as White Glacier. 



