The North Palisade Glacier 



263 



party made an early start for the glacier at the head of the 

 creek. 



The ascent to the foot of the glacier, more than two thousand 

 feet, was over ledges of bare granite and loose rock-slides with 

 several branches of the stream to cross. This upper basin of 

 Big Pine Creek is one of the wildest in the Sierra. It is all 

 over 10,000 feet in elevation and is near or above timber line. 

 The ascent through it is the more interesting because of the 

 ever-changing views of the precipitous eastern faces of the 

 giant peaks at its head — Mt. Sill, the North Palisade, Mt. Win- 

 chell and Agassiz Needle. 



At the lower end of a tongue of ice which reached far below 

 the remainder of the glacier, we stopped to study a route to the 

 main glacier above. The scramble over the rock ledges to the 

 left proved much easier than it appeared from a distant view. 



This brought us to the foot of the terminal moraine of the 

 main glacier. Here one first gains an idea of the immense 

 power of the glacier, which has slowly piled up a mountain 

 of debris of all sizes, from coarse sand to boulders weighing 

 many tons. On the lower face these particles are all practically 

 at the angle of repose. This feature lends some excitement to 

 the next bit of climbing, particularly when one finds the 

 smaller particles, loosened by his own movements, beginning 

 to slide out from under some boulder of several tons' weight 

 directly above. 



At the top of the moraine one suddenly gains a wonderful 

 view of the ice field of the glacier extending from under foot to 

 the mountain wall opposite. This glacier is the largest in the 

 Sierra. It has a length of about one mile and a width of ap- 

 proximately a mile and a half. Directly at its head is the face 

 of the North Palisade, a magnificent, almost vertical cliff, 

 1,500 feet in height. The summit of the peak (14,254 feet) is 

 probably inaccessible from this side. 



The glacier itself presents many features common to glaciers 

 — perched boulders, crevasses, streamlets, and bergschrund. 

 However, as active glaciers are not numerous in California, 

 many of these features must continue to attract attention ; and 

 as this wonderland at the head of Big Pine Creek becomes bet- 

 ter known it will have many admiring visitors. 



