420 AN EXPLORATION TO MOUNT McKINLEY. 



a meal that no city cook need be ashamed of, yet it was prepared in 

 one of the most inaccessible points on the continent, with onh- green 

 willow as fuel. George was ever faithful to his task, read}^ at any 

 time of night or day with a hot meal for those who returned late. 



Our camp of August 1 was pitched in a grove of cottonwoods near 

 the foot of a glacier which flowed down from the neve fields of Mount 

 Foraker. This we called the ''Herron Glacier," in honor of Capt. 

 Joseph S. Herron, our predecessor in the exploration of the upper 

 Kuskokwim Basin. A short scramble through the underbrush brought 

 me to the front of the moraine, which stretched like a cyclopean 

 wall across the valley. Climbing to the top, 1 surveyed the mass 

 spread out before me, Aery like the preliminary dumping ground 

 of a railway excavation. It was a striking scene and an unusual one, 

 for a newly formed moraine is the exception in land forms. Nature 

 in her sculpturing delights in rounded and symmetrical outlines, and 

 it is only Avhen the forces of erosion have not had time to do their 

 molding that such a crude, unfinished surface is exposed to view. It 

 is, so to speak, the raw material which streams and rains will carve 

 ijito beautifully rounded topography, and then vegetation, nature's 

 decorative artist, will clothe with greens of various hues. 



Two days later we made our nearest camp to Mount McKinley in a 

 broad, shallow valley incised in the piedmont plateau and drained by a 

 stream which found its source in the ice- clad slopes of the high moun- 

 tain. We had reached the base of the peak, and a part of our mission 

 was accomplished, with a margin of six weeks left for its completion. 

 This bade us make haste, for Ave must still traverse some 400 miles of 

 unexplored region before we could hope to reach even the outposts of 

 civilization. Notwithstanding all of this, we decided to allow our- 

 selves one day's delay, so that Ave might actually set foot on the slopes 

 of the mountain. The ascent of Mount McKinley had never been part 

 of our plan, for our mission was exploration and surve3ang, not 

 mountaineering, but it now seemed A'ery hard to us that AA:e had neither 

 time nor equipment to attempt the mastery of this highest peak of the 

 continent. 



The next morning dawned clear and lu'ight. Climbing the ])luff 

 above our camp, I overlooked the upper part of the vallej', spread 

 before me like a broad amphitheater, its sides formed by the slopes of 

 the mountain and its spurs. Here and there glistened in the sun the 

 white surfa-ces of glaciers which found their way down from the peaks 

 aboA'e. The great mountain rose 17,000 feet above our camp, appar- 

 ently almost sheer from the fiat A\alley floor. (See plate vii.) Its 

 dome-shaped summit and upper slopes were white with snoAv, relieved 

 here and there by black areas which marked cliffs too steep for the 

 snoAV to lie upon. 



A two hours' walk across the valley, through several deep glacial 

 streams, brought me to the A^ery ])ase of the mountain. As I approached 



