94 irC. Russell— Expecllfwn to Mount St. Ellas. 



The quickest and easiest way down was to slide on the snow. 

 Using my alpenstock as a brake, I descended swiftly several 

 hundred feet without difficulty, the dogs hounding along beside 

 ine, when on looking up I was startled to see two- huge brown 

 bears on the same snow surface, a little to the left and not more 

 than a hundred and fifty yards aAvay. Had my slide been con- 

 tinued a few seconds more I should have been in exceedingly 

 unwelcome company. I was unarmed, and entirely unprepared 

 for a fight with two of the most savage animals found in this 

 country. The bears had long yellowish-brown hair, and were of 

 the size and character of the " grizzly," with which they are 

 thought by hunters, if not by naturalists, to be specifically iden- 

 tical. They were not at all disturbed by my presence, and in 

 spite of my shouts, which I thought would make them travel off, 

 one of them came leisurely toward me. His strides over the 

 snow revealed a strength and activity commanding admiration 

 despite the decidedly uncomfortable feeling awakened by his 

 proximity and evident curiosity. Later in the season I meas- 

 ured the tracks of an animal of the same species, made while 

 walking over a soft, level surface, and found each impression to 

 measure 9 by 17 inches, and the stride to reach 64 inches. So 

 far as I have been able to learn, this is the largest bear track that 

 has been reported. Realizing my danger, I continued my snow 

 slide, but in a different direction and with accelerated speed. 

 The upper limit of the dense thicket clothing the slope of the 

 mountain was soon reached, and my unwelcome companions 

 were lost to sight. 



Following the bed of a torrent fed by the snow-fields above, I 

 soon came to the creek chosen for my route back to camp ; the 

 waters, brown and turbid with sediment, welled out of a cavern 

 at the foot of an ice precipice 200 feet high, and formed a roaring 

 stream too deep and too swift for fording. The roaring of the 

 brown waters and the startling noises made by stones rattling 

 down the ice-cliff, together with the dark shadows of the deep 

 gorge, walled in by a steep mountain slope on one side and a 

 glacier on the other, made the route seem uncanny. On the 

 sands filling the spaces between the bowlders there were manj^ 

 fresh bear tracks, which at least suggested that the belated trav- 

 eler should be careful in his movements. 



This locality was afterward occupied as a camping place, and 

 is shown in the picture forming plate 10. The dark-colored ice. 



