On Mt. St. Helens with the Mazamas. 173 



We arose at five next morning, but there was some 

 delay in starting, and we were not on the march till past 

 seven, A little above camp we dropped into the floor 

 of one of the numerous glacial canons by which the 

 mountain is furrowed, and by means of it approached the 

 first snow-slope. Before we had fairly begun to climb, 

 the sun, whose earliest rays had reached the northern 

 slope, had so far softened the snow that it made slow, 

 diflicult going. Nor Avas this the worst. On St. Helens 

 the arms of rock that extend into the snow are com- 

 posed of lava boulders loosely imbedded in pumice. 

 Wherever rock and snow meet, the action of the sun sends 

 cannonades of rocks down upon the slopes below. We 

 were seldom out of range of this bombardment. For- 

 tunately the rocks that fell were small and scattered, and 

 the snow was seldom so steep that we could not dodge; 

 but the thought of the havoc that might be wrought in 

 our ranks should the mountain choose to let loose the 

 full strength of its batteries scarcely added to the pleas- 

 ure of the climb. We encountered no dangerous work 

 on the lower part of the mountain, but twice the crossing 

 of crevasses consumed so much valuable time in the ad- 

 justment of alpenstocks and ropes that it was not until 

 two o'clock that we reached the top of the "Lizard" and 

 paused for lunch. 



The Lizard is a long promontory of rocks, a divide 

 between two glaciers. Its tail loses itself in the lower 

 pumice slopes, while its head stretched far upward, two 

 thirds of the way to the summit. It was our first oppor- 

 tunity to fairly gauge our rate of progress — hardly an 

 encouraging one in view of the steeper climbing that must 

 lay ahead. This was the time, of course, for us to 

 acknowledge our defeat and turn back to make a better 

 start some other day, but to give up was the last thought 

 in the minds of most of us. Eight of the party did wisely 

 determine to return, but the rest of us, in the cheerful 

 optimism of half-way up, thought we might ''if we tried" 

 reach the summit by four-thirty. 



