The First Test 



From the Half Way House to the Horn 

 It Ig perhaps a quarter of a mile. The 

 party left their snowshoes, Mohn left his 

 skUs, all strapped ice-creepers to their 

 boots. Between the Half Way Houpe and 

 the Horn was the first side s'ope. It was 

 steep and cru.sted with hard snow. Thi] 

 wind began its sweep h«re. It set a gust}-; 



■all against the men. They toiled across 

 the si pe toward the corner called the 

 itorn. Tt was laj-gely for observation, he- 

 the dogs could only go part way. 

 The wind was too muoJi for thenx. Tlie 

 men themselves, creepers and all, could 

 not go far. As they reached the roekv 

 turn all the strength of the wind struck 

 them. Evans and Dodge, who got I'ar- 

 the.st, had to hold on to each other, and 

 both are powerful men. Belcher was 

 blown off the trail and clung- to a rock. 

 Tou could lean forward vifimut >^i,.pniiis 

 from the waist until hand 

 touch, the ground. It was 

 miles an hour and a dog- i, 

 hav8 been lifted off the ni' in;: nr . 



The Paths men gunned the picture with 

 men holding them steady at both head and 

 feet. Both Evan.s and Dodge said it would 

 be possible for strong and experienced men 

 to climb the four miles more to the top. 

 But both said they would take terrible 

 punishTnent doing if. The party crept back 

 from tlie Horn with the aid of ropes and 

 rested. After a ivhile on snowshoes they 

 turned slo\\ly backward down the moun- 

 ialn. Tile dog team as usual was far ahe:id. 

 They reached the Glen House before noon. 



The Second Attempt 



All through the afternoon of Monday they 

 watched the mountain, tip at the skyline 

 the dot of the Summit House was black 

 against the snow all about it and on all the 

 ridges the snow was blowing In clouds in 

 the terrible wind. That was no place tor 

 a man who cared for his life. Yet behind 

 and above it all, the sky was olearlv blur-, 

 and through all the forests of the moun- 

 tains sighed the deep and ondl. ^viv<\ 



Evans thought it woul-l di'-' H,-, 

 _ nightfall Th • M ,^ I „ . 



night he s-.n! 

 weather. I i 

 Tuesday pro 

 ■who had in. 

 their heacifi 



signs. Tho snow clouds ivcre smaller. The] 

 deep sound in the forest diminished. Itji 

 would be worth trying. 



At T.!-"! on Tuesday morning tl- 

 started, there was wind in the val 

 no .snow blew on tr.r, of th--- m 

 Walden harnessed ^- i 

 ber he had used 

 fti single filo hitLi, 

 hitcii- t ninook 1*^0 . ■ o 

 to be Chinook's last great Hrl-.pntui 

 great old doff is in his (entli \ e: 

 Behind him in the harness were 

 Bon.s. They were Kaltag. ' 

 ■aliK. Sha.gwa. and Ballarat. 

 dogs all. except Chinook. The mf 



party 



\ oung 



Waldeti 

 Belcher 

 Hons- 



Dodge. Mo I 



To fjti 



iskop. 



r. T'ney left the Glen 

 4. The team started 

 but quickly caught up. 

 dogs, can wtilk up liiu 

 .' to catch hold of .-. 

 knotted roijc attached to the sleigh nrd 

 kae.p pace with thfm for two miif... pv 

 With Ike help they gave in i 

 uwr the hard places it I 

 feeep up to them Wltlioul 



Not, at any rate, for an average ^ person. 

 But AVa,lden, fifty-five .years o'.d and tire-; 

 less, trotted behind, holding tite handle- 

 bars, seemingly without fatigue and al-waya, 

 smoking cigarettes. Th© trim figure of the 

 glim faced little man went along and up-' 

 ward .straight as an arrow. He _wore a fur 

 cap on his head, a tan parka setting snug- 

 Iv .'HCio.^s his nne shoulders and belteo 

 ahnm viarrow -waist; his feet -were en--' 



Over the Slope on One Runner 



To the Half Way House It took -Just two 

 hours and tlfteen minute.s. There the party, 

 stopped for half an hour to unload the sled 

 and strap on creepers. The wind had be- 

 gun ;o rise, but to nothmg like that of the 

 li f 1 Its lo ,t^ lotween 



t«pi:ty and tlii-t-r rnilcs an hour. The 

 lemn-rnt, oi, |.-.avmg the Glen House 



- ':--r<^-. ,:.r,,.- ;.C-n, the HBU 



-) Joe Dodge 

 ■ the pack 

 - of It when 

 '^ '--^'-io.o I u- L.-i'. I n.-' ...i,.,:- \va.s clear. 

 The first joo was to get the dogs over 



j that side -slope to th© Horn. Evans took 

 I a 1 uiT« that was tied to Chinook and Dodge 

 I and Mohn on the slope abovp: The dog = 

 I hol.j up the thn'i_v-tivp-,%ound sleigh which 

 I otl^'-' ' '■" ■"'-' 'o- ■- ■ '^ 1 o-i-ard. pull- 

 "-- ooldiiig the' 



upward st 

 only. ■ Act 

 I Thev rf 

 fotir-raile 

 bare *r : 



■ . . 1 J'- iiio same time 

 ■-■lis. ,i...ji-i-r!\ swung the s:e;gh 

 lai jt ran on Us upper runner 

 ■ tney went. 



led the Horn and passed the 



Hert 



the 



I sliort distan 

 snow by the wind. The wind w'as stronger 

 now and blowing in gusts which made it 

 harder ,o guage the efforts needed to i-f- 

 fi.st It. ThB party passed the fairly level 

 go Uk «nd .truck across the long side slope 

 wheie sometimes the edge was guarded by 

 a stone wall and sometimes not. To reach 

 the stone -wall was an anxious fa.sk. Thr- 



■ . : '- ' - ■ -'-. -■■■■'J i^iidwig 



with his IitMe hand movie camera and Bel | 

 cherjsrIUi a newspaper camera ffumled the 



I team ermine and going. How thev reached 

 I some of those places, how they stayed there 

 when they reached them is something hard 

 to sa, . oFr this w-as lung-bursting, heart- 

 breaking climbing when legs were hard to 

 litt and lungs hard to supply with oxygen 

 enough in the increasingly rarlfied ~ air. 

 Besides, and most important, these two men 

 wtr equi|..!,e.j ctil; w,ib toy ire creepers 

 bought in . . s ,nd hard, better 



than worthless tor such mountain work. 



On the Bnnk and Slipping 



Bj now Dodge and Mohn bad son' 

 ahead toward the top. The rest of the 

 party lost sight of them and fought along 

 beh md. bide slopes were pas.sed and stone 

 «alls reached. Then they came to the 

 lower spur of Chandler Ridgc 



^o stone w-all protected «them here, the 

 Side slope was as near to perpendi,-ni». 



mid be 



I'o 



:rerpp 



lold 



I that 



with IhP 

 slope, in 



mile down, on wh 



Walden was forward with Chinook, Evean» 



Avas back with the sled. Jlidway acroijs 

 the slope the sled began to slip. The 

 temperature had gone down now, the wind 

 blew gusts ot lifty to sixty milea an hour. 

 On that wind the snow stung like steel 

 •^diot. 



The sled was slipping. It was movlns 

 iver so little down the deadly slope. The 

 logs stopped dead, their fr a wind blown 

 tawny ruffle. In the distance lay the miles 

 ot frozen mountains, a beautiful picture if 

 the moment had allowed of beauty. Evans 

 could barely hold up the sled. Walden could 

 barely hold up the dogs. They could hold 

 tiiere by exerting all their strength, but 

 they could not go ahead and they could 

 not turn back. The young dogs were be- 

 ginning to bow downward in the middle of 

 the ime. A^alden, more than any one else, 

 icallzed how acute the danger for hi, 

 dogs, pus-^^ted by the wind, were preparing 

 to turn down«-ard in a dash that would 

 never have stopped without death or In, 

 niry to some one. All but old Chinook, 

 There the great dog stood at the head ^ 

 the line unswerving. Not even did 4i* 

 Continued on Page rourteett 



CHINOOK WRITES^DOG HISTORY 



Continued from Page One 



turn his head to escape* the -ndnd. Four 

 feet planted, he stood there an example to 

 his song, a figure of itrength, duty Ana 

 courage. It was not enough. 



The Narrowest Escape 



Another member of the party managed 

 to creep above the sled and grasp the knot- 

 ted rope attached it it. He dug a foothold 

 with one ice creeper but could not make a 

 dent with the other. gtill the help was 

 enough to hold the sled. Ludn lg Gieskop, 

 aided more by his courage than the toy 

 creepers he wore, worked along until he 

 was at»lB to lift the burden of a camera 

 bag from the shoulders of the man holding' 

 the roo». Walden gave tlie word and old 

 Chinook started. Walden helped the dogs, 

 Evans held the sled, the man above pulled 

 upward on the knotted rope. Tliey made a 

 few feet and stopped. A few feet mc\-e and 

 stopped. Exhaustion of the man with the 

 rope made the rushes shorter, but the dis- 

 tance was made, the slope was passed, an- 

 other stone wall was reached and Waldsn 

 and his team and Evans and the third man 

 were safe. But Belcher and Geiskop were 

 not in sight. Evans took fifty feet of rope 

 and went back. 



Belcher and Geiskop were stuck, Belcher 

 had started to slip and had saved himseff 

 only with a ski pole which he carried. Lud- 

 wig had slipped twice and managed to save 

 himself. Then he had crept to Belcher, 

 whose nerve -ft'as all that carried him j 

 through the trip, and the two of them ! 

 stayed there supported by the ski rope. Af- 

 er a while they -worked their way to a rock 

 Itat jutted out of the snow. There they 

 braced themselves and waited, with a quar- 

 ter of a mile below them. Evans found 

 fhem so. Getting to them, aided by his 

 heavy spikes, he roped them, one at the 

 middle of the line and one at the end. He 

 made a loop across his shoulders and sl.^w- 

 y got them across. That was the worst 

 f the trip. 



