182 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[March 29, 1888. 



THE ROCK CLIMBERS. 

 XIV. — A RIVER OF ICE. 



HPHE moon, nearly at her full, had almost reached the 

 - 1 tops of the western mountains when the Rock 

 Climbers rose from their bed of boughs, and made ready 

 for a long day's work. Deep silence lay over the narrow 

 valley where they, perhaps the first of all white men, 

 had slept. There was no noisy babble of brook, nor soft 

 wash of wavelets upon the beach, nor any cry of bird 

 or beast to break the stillness. Day was not yet near, 

 and the sounds of the forest which herald the coining 

 of the light were as yet unheard. The men moved 

 quietly about as if loath to break this stillness. They 

 seemed to feel and to be awed by it. But, little by little 

 the fire began to crackle, and the familial- sounds of 

 camp were heard. Breakfast was soon eaten, the beds 

 rolled up, and each man's load made ready. Appekunny 

 put the camera on his back. Jack took the shotgun and 

 a few shells. Yo buckled on his cartridge belt and took 

 his rifle, and then with Jack in the lead, the three strode 

 silently away through the forest on the east side of the 

 stream. At first progress through down timber and 

 brush and snowslide was very slow in the darkness, but 

 as this faded, and the pale gray light of the coming day 

 made their way plainer, they advanced more rapidly. A 

 mile and a half above the camp they came to a wide, 

 rapid mountain stream which enters the valley from the 

 southwest, through a broad canon. They waded through 

 tins, and keeping up the valley of the main stream, soon 

 came to an open meadow dotted here and there with 

 little spruces. Beyond this they could see that there 

 was no timber, and in a few moments they stood on the 

 shore of a beautiful glacial lake. 



It was circular in form, perhaps a mile across, and on 

 all sides except that where they stood, was walled in by 

 vertical precipices of tremendous height. Immediately 

 above it, and just opposite them, was the glacier from 

 -which flowed the dark green waters of the lake, while 

 on the north and the south were stern snow- wreathed 

 rock walls which seemed to forbid further progress. On 

 every side the walls dropped straight down into the deep 

 waters, and along their smooth sides it seemed impossible 

 to pass. At the head of the lake there is a narrow fringe 

 of willows, then an open meadow of small extent, broken 

 on its eastern side by a low, rocky, pine-crowned promon- 

 tory, which juts out from the foot of Monroe's frowning 

 peak. Behind the little meadow rises squarely a thous- 

 and feet of black precipice, divided into two nearly equal 

 halves by the white waving line of foam — only a line at 

 this distance, but nearer at hand a torrent — which rushes 

 out from beneath the glacier and plunges dowmvard, 

 dashing itself to spray in its fall. On the right, as they 

 faced the ice, or to the north of the lake, another still 

 higher mountain rises abruptly in a series of rocky 

 ledges, one above another, to a great height, and then 

 terminates in a knife edge of naked pinnacled rock, cold, 

 hard and forbidding. Beyond, and most interesting of 

 all, is the tremendous mass of the glacial ice, and about 

 it, holding it in a close clasp, are the snow-patched 

 gray fingers of the verdureless crags. 



It was a scene long to be remembered , one of marvelous 

 grandeur and beauty, but its severe, majesty and rugged 

 sternness were awe-inspiring. The mountains did not 

 invite ascent, they seemed rather to defy it; to smile 

 coldly and to say in their voiceless speech, "Untrodden 

 by white man's foot we have stood since the foundations 

 of the world were laid, if you can surmount us, do so." 

 And indeed it seemed hopeless to attempt this long climb 

 in the short space of one day. 



For awhile the men stood speechless as they looked 

 over the scene. The sun had not yet appeared, but its 

 yellow rays were gilding the tops of the great mountain 

 on the north side of the lake, and little by little the light 

 crept down the mountainside, flashing on one snowbank 

 after another, causing the red rocks, one by one, to glow 

 as they were touched by its rays, and bringing out the 

 vivid green of the alpine grasses on the lower ledges 

 clearly against the white, the red and the gray. How 

 softly the sunlight stole along the mountainsides, each 

 moment revealing fresh beauties. A day might have 

 been spent here most happily, just watching the play of 

 the sunlight, the changing shadows and the Mountains 

 brightening or growing cold. But time was short. There, 

 before them, lay the great ice river, near in actual dis- 

 tance, but how far when measured by the steps that must 

 be taken to reach it, none of them could tell. The 

 camera was set up, therefore, and a few views taken; Yo 

 walked hastily along the rough shingle, examining some 

 fresh tracks made on the pebbles, but was unable to de- 

 termine whether the great animal which had passed 

 swiftly along was a moose or an elk, and then the loads 

 were again taken up and they directed their steps toward 

 the foot of Monroe's Peak, beneath which it seemed that 

 the way was most practicable. 



Here, over the talus which in bygone days had fallen 

 from the stupendous cliff above them, they made their 

 slow way around the lake. Sometimes they crept along 

 almost on hands and knees over the steep and slippery 

 rocks, forcing a passage through the thick strong willows 

 and alders which grew in each crevice among the stones; 

 at others, when the way was more open and less steep, 



stepping cautiously from rock to rock, balancing them- 

 selves with extremest care lest a misstep should send 

 them sliding down the slope and into the cold waters 

 below. At length, having passed this talus and out of the 

 entangling shrubs which were too strong to break or 

 bend and must be stepped over or crept under, they 

 reached the rocky promontory, where the going was more 

 open, and passing over this, were soon in the open meadow 

 below the precipice. It was swampy and overgrown 

 with willows, and great bars of gray gravel, the debris 

 from the glacier above, stood far above the level of the 

 soil. Here for a few moments they rested, and then 

 started on, breasting a steep shoulder which gave an 

 easy ascent for a couple of hundred feet to the lowest 

 step of the cliff they wished to ascend. It was very steep, 

 yet the climbing did not seem hard, for it must be re- 

 membered that for a month these men had been doing 

 hard physical work, and then- brains, lungs and muscles 

 were now far better able to perform this arduous labor 

 than they had been before. They marched steadily on, 

 therefore, stopping now and then for a moment's breath, 

 and at length reached the ledge. Along this they walked 

 until they reached the very bed of the falls, and here 

 began the serious work of the day. 



The icy torrent which for ages had been flowing 

 over these rocks, had cut for itself in some places a hollow 

 channel in their surfaces. On one side or the other the 

 rocks had fallen away, so as to furnish here a crevice, 

 there a projecting knob which would give hand or foot- 

 hold to the climber. Yet sometimes there opposed them 

 only a smooth, naked cliff, which was insurmountable, 

 and then a search must be made along its face for some 

 place over which they could pass. Slowly and carefully 

 they climbed upward, often crossing the stream from one 

 side to the other, clinging with tenacious grip to each 

 little spruce twig, thrusting their fingers into the crevices 

 in the rock, and fitting their feet on every knob or pro- 

 jecting splinter or roughness that would aid them. Some- 

 times holding on with elbows, knees, calves, yes, even 

 with then- chins, as they worked their way along over 

 places which often the dogs would not face, but before 

 Which they stood yelping with terror as they were left 

 far behind. So, inch by inch, and foot by foot they made 

 their way upward. The crossing of the stream was per- 

 haps as nervous work as any that they had to do. The 

 boulders which lay in it were worn smooth as glass, and 

 the fine mist which rose from the falling waters froze on 

 them, making them very slippery. Long jumps from one 

 to another of these had to be made, and often in places 

 where a slip would insure a fall of forty or fifty feet sheer 

 on to rough rocks below. About two-thirds the way to 

 the top of the precipice they came out on a shelf, perhaps 

 one hundred feet wide, which was almost covered with 

 high-heaped debris, brought dow r n by the glacier from 

 above. These enormous piles of drift were composed of 

 boulders and gravel of all sizes, from masses as large as 

 a small house to grains no larger than a pin's head. 

 Some of these fragments were as sharply angular as when 

 they fell from their original resting place in the moun- 

 tain above on to the ice, others were worn and rounded 

 by attrition against the subjacent rock. Most of this 

 drift was large, much of the finer gravel having been 

 carried on and over the cliff into the valley below, where 

 it could be seen spread out in a great mass, covering 

 manj' acres. 



The white, quivering falls are very fine. They rush 

 down the cliff, often by vertical plunges a hundred 

 feet or more in height, or down sharp inclines, and 

 in one case they have worn a deep fissure in the slate, 

 and shoot down with a hissing sound thirty or forty 

 feet back from one who looks in at them from the narrow 

 opening of the crevice. Everywhere there is spray, and 

 often clinging to the vertical walls of the cliff are great 

 masses of white ice, the arrested current of some little 

 spring or offshoot of the stream. 



Keeping to the right over this great mass of morainal 

 drift they gradually ascended over alternating ledges and 

 grassy slopes, through deep snowdrifts and around little 

 clumps of dwarfed pine trees, until they reached the level 

 of the lower border of the glacier. Here the drift was 

 spread out far and wide, and they could see, to the right, 

 high ridges, like those thrown up by a plow, lying- 

 parallel to the course of the ice river. These w T ere some- 

 times fifty or sixty feet high above its surface, which 

 came up on the southwest side close to their bases, and 

 were from one-half to one-quarter of a mile in length. 

 At its lower end the glacier had melted so that it was 

 difficult to say just where the ice ended and the drift 

 which it bound together began. For half a mile or 

 more from this lower edge, the ice was bare of snow, 

 dotted here and there with stones, and was grayish-blue 

 as it glittered in the bright sunlight; above this it was for 

 the most part snow-covered. It lies in a basin two miles 

 wide by three or more deep, and consists of two prin- 

 cipal masses, the lower of these covering a great extent 

 of ground and running up into the little ravines and 

 gorges of the mountains on either side. The upper mass 

 seemed, though it was not reached, smaller than the one 

 below. It rests on a ledge which runs far back among 

 the peaks, and in its slow motion is constantly falling 

 ! over the cliff and uniting with the lower mass. Snow- 



covered on top, the exposed side of this frozen waterfall 

 is blue as the sky above it. From the side of this slow- 

 moving ice river great blocks fell from time to time, and 

 lay scattered about over the snow, on which they shone 

 like sapphires. 



It is impossible to do more than guess at the thickness 

 of this ice, but from the edge of the lower mass to its 

 comb the men estim ated the vertical distance at about 

 700ft. The thickness of the upper mass is perhaps 300ft., 

 though from immediately below it, this seems too high 

 an estimate. It is impossible, without going over the 

 ice and visiting the sources of this frozen river, to get any 

 adequate conception of its area and character. The Rock 

 Climbers were unable to proceed further than the comb 

 of the lower ice, and so saw but a small portion of the 

 whole. Viewed from a distance with the telescope it is 

 observed that further to the south the upper ice slopes 

 gradually into the lower mass, and also extends far back 

 on the mountainside, sending off branches into the high 

 narrow gorges among the peaks. The men who had been 

 on the lower mass of the ice and knew something of its 

 size were thus able later when looking at the glacier 

 from the valley with a powerful glass to estimate how 

 small a portion of the whole this formed. It is believed 

 that the whole glacier occupies not less than 3,000ft. verti- 

 cally on the mountainside. The upper ice can unques- 

 tionably be reached without difficulty, but to accomplish 

 this it would be necessary to camp at the glacier's foot , 

 where there is some wood, from which point coidd be 

 made the excursions which would be necessary to take 

 measurements and generally to probe the secrets of this 

 desolate corner of the mountains. 



One feature of this ice mass which at once attracted 

 attention was that, at the time when it was seen, there 

 was in the water which flowed from beneath it no evi- 

 dence of motion. It is well known that water in glacial 

 streams is mfiky, thick with fine particles of comminuted 

 rock ground up by the ice in its slow passage over its 

 hard bed. Here, however, the water was clear. Two 

 years before, when Yo and Appekunny had looked down 

 from the mountain tops about Swift Current upon this 

 ice and the lower of the two lakes which receive its 

 waters, the case was different. Then the stream which 

 flowed from it into the Fifth Swift Current Lake was 

 w T hite, so that at the point of entrance a long line of 

 milky water extended out into the lake, and the line of 

 demarcation between the two currents wa3 clearly marked 

 almost to the falls. Such a line of separation may be 

 seen where the Missouri and the Mississippi come together, 

 or the Rhone and Arve, or where the mighty Fraser pours 

 its turbid torrent into the clear, dark waters of the Gulf 

 of Georgia. Two years before, then, in September, when 

 the weather had for some time been warm and rainy, a 

 grinding was going on beneath this mass of ice; now, in 

 November, the grinding has ceased. It was suggested 

 that the bitter cold weather of the past two w T eeks had 

 frozen up the mass and arrested its motion, and that it 

 would not move again until staring. A learned geologist 

 has expressed the opinion that the motion of some of 

 these Rocky Mountain glaciers may be a slipping and 

 sliding- rather than a crushing and tearing one. That 

 there was some movement of the ice even at the time of 

 the men's visit was shown by the fact that blocks of ice 

 were constantly falling off from the upper mass on to 

 the new fallen snow beneath. 



An interesting feature of this ice is its seemingly lam- 

 inated character. By this is not meant the well known 

 veined structure so familiar in glacial ice, wmich has 

 given rise to so many experiments, but rather a series of 

 layers of ice of varying thickness, approximately hori- 

 zontal, each of which is separated from the one above it 

 by a very thin layer of dirt. Each of these icy layers 

 was taken to represent a winter's snowfall, and the thin 

 dividing layers of dirt the dust and movable debris from 

 the adjacent mountain peaks which the wind during the 

 summer had blown on the surface of the new-fallen 

 snow. These layers of compacted snow varied in thick- 

 ness from one to twelve inches, while the dividing line 

 of dark grit and soil was usually no thicker than a sheet 

 of paper. 



All this was not seen at once, but was the result of 

 several hours' clambering about the ice, and was inter- 

 rupted by an episode to be referred to hereafter. After 

 reaching the borders of the glacier the men followed it 

 around to the right, for it was impossible to walk up the 

 steep glare ice which lay between them and the comb of 

 the lower mass. In, close to the rocks, which came 

 abruptly down to the glacier's border, there was new snow 

 in abundance, and this was soft enough to give good foot- 

 ing. At one point Appekunny carelessly tried to shorten 

 the way by climbing up over some old snow, which was 

 quite steep. Before he had gone very far, the others saw 

 Mm digging his feet into the hard snow, as if uncertain 

 of his footing. Then he slipped, recovered himself, 

 stood for a moment as if doubtful whether to go 

 backward or forward, took another step, his feet 

 flew out from under him, and he began to slide 

 down the steep snowdrift. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances the sight of a man tobogganing- down a snowdrift 

 with a camera strapped to his back, would have excited 

 the laughter of the onlookers; but now, when it was un- 



