lO 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. 2, 1909. 
cult to keep one’s feet at all, the wind pushed 
so hard. 
The mound upon which we stood comprised 
about seven acres of comparatively level sur¬ 
face. It appeared like a moving island. As far 
as the eye could reach in every direction there 
extended one immense ocean of billowy clouds. 
Nothing but white cloud caps could be seen 
except the very tip of Mt. Thuksan, nearby, 
and Mt. Rainier, away off to the south, like 
an iceberg in this great sea of vapor. 
A few footprints were here and there visible 
where they had not been drifted under or blown 
away, showing that some one had recently been 
on the mountain, but as there were no tracks 
of women, it seemed that the Mountaineers had 
not yet been up. No place could be found 
where the footprints led over the crest. We 
concluded that we had been preceded by the 
Dodson-Ross party of five who were making 
th’e ascent about this time from the southwest, 
along the route taken by E. T. Coleman in mak¬ 
ing the first ascent of Mt. Baker, in 1868. So we 
returned to our cave with no prospects of any 
trail down to Mountaineer Camp, where we 
wished to go. 
To retrace our steps back down the west 
slope to our base of supplies would have been 
possible in clear weather, but exceedingly 
dangerous in a blinding storm; besides, it would 
have spelled failure. Then, too, there was no 
telling how long the storm might continue, and 
to remain and wait would have been equally 
risky. Disappointed, though not dismayed, we 
decided to attempt to reach our destination 
without further delay. About this time there 
was a slackening of the wind. 
We hastily doubled our blankets, cut arm¬ 
holes in them and belted them around our 
bodies for overcoats. We abandoned the rest 
of our camp supplies and part of our outfit, be¬ 
ing almost certain we would be forced to re¬ 
turn to this ice cave for another night. Accord¬ 
ing to the terms of an old saying we were now 
“between the devil and the deep sea.” We 
hadn’t gone more than five hundred feet when 
we came squarely up to the brim of the crater, 
which lies between the main and the secondary 
peaks, and, from the smell of brimstone, it 
seemed as if this were literally true. A preci¬ 
pice of rocks gray in color from the admixture 
of yellow sulphur defied our further progress in 
that direction. The flurry and gusts of eddying 
clouds and the fumes from the crater were sug¬ 
gestive of the vision of Dante. One rift in the 
clouds at this instant afforded us the only 
glance we ever got of the secondary peak, yet 
for hours in the dense fog we worked like de¬ 
mons among the crevasses trying to extricate 
ourselves from this particular circle. 
The clouds were so dense that all Monday 
afternoon we could not see more than a few 
yards. At times they would thicken so the one 
in the rear could hardly distinguish the leader 
to whom the life-line was tied. We were cer¬ 
tainly having a novel experience in that arctic 
cloudland in midsummer, when the people at 
sea level were complaining of the heat. Our 
blanket overcoats were crusted with sleet and 
our whiskers with icicles. The footing was 
treacherous and required almost constant step¬ 
cutting. The crevasses were wider and more 
numerous than on the west side. Long detours 
were made, in some instances over a quarter of 
a mile, to find a passage around them. Back 
and forth and up and down we groped our way 
among these death traps. We looped our trail 
twice and back-tracked it several times; any 
way to gain a point downward. At no time 
did we lose our bearings and not once did we 
consult our compass. With a fair knowledge of 
the region we were about to enter and of the 
nature of the work confronting us, we kept 
clearly in mind our direction and had little con¬ 
cern except for our footing. 
When darkness came on, although we had 
labored hard for seven hours, we were not yet 
a thousand feet down the mountain. We had 
hoped to reach timberline where we could at 
CREVASSE WHERE THE PARTY PASSED THE SECOND 
NIGHT ON MOUNT BAKER. 
Photograph by Asahel Curtis. 
least have a camp fire. It was nobody’s fault, 
however; we were simply storm-bound, happy 
to know that none had perished and glad we 
were making progress. The boys had con¬ 
fidence in their leader and if any lost heart 
there was never any expression of it. 
Suddenly we were confronted by a precipice 
of rocks over the brink of which it was im¬ 
possible to make a descent, even with a rope. 
To the right was a fearful crevasse which we 
had been trying for the last hour to find some 
passage around, and to the left was another, 
apparently impassable. The situation was 
alarming, for it was too late to retrace steps 
to the ice cave and to remain where we then 
were, exposed to the weather, meant sure death 
by freezing. 
Ambushed by darkness and fog, we were once 
more put to the test to devise some expedient 
to cheat Fate of its victims. We could not re¬ 
peat the experience of the night before because 
conditions did not favor it. Being a question 
of physical endurance, it did not appear to be 
a wise thing to do, to try to maintain body 
warmth by tramping a circle all night, for some 
one might not be equal to the occasion. Our 
blankets, worn as overcoats, were covered with 
sleet and unfit for making a bed where there 
was no protection from the wind, still we had 
to save ourselves by some adaptation of our 
immediate surroundings. 
Down in one of the crevasses about twenty- 
five feet there happened to be a large block of 
ice wedged in like a keystone. The bottom was 
very much deeper, but how much we could not 
tell. Shielded from the cold night wind and 
storm it promised protection, so here we decided 
to spend the night. It was like going down 
into one’s grave to sleep. One member of the 
party was lowered by the rope and the upper 
surface of the keystone was leveled off with 
the pick. A stone floof was laid upon it with 
flat slabs of lava from a cleaver near to hand. 
Then the rope was made fast and the others 
lowered themselves into this sepulcher. The 
sensation was a weird one, but there was no 
alternative. The chance was good to keep from 
freezing, but we might perish from some move¬ 
ment of the ice. 
We folded our wet blankets about ourselves 
like shrouds and put in our time trying to 
keep warm by sitting down upon the stone 
flagging. We conserved our animal heat as 
much as possible by huddling close together 
and by closing the blankets over our heads and 
faces to retain the warmth of our breath. Ris¬ 
ing at times and swinging the legs to warm the 
feet, we worried through a miserable night. 
One of the most disagreeable features of this 
night’s lodging in cold storage was the chilly 
current of air that rose from the unknown 
depths, of the crevass like the draft of some 
immense flue. It sent a chill to the very bones 
and we all shivered and chattered our teeth by 
spasms.. Here we missed the social little lamp 
that had provided us with hot drink at the ice 
den. We still had some food but no appetites 
—not one of us cared for a mouthful of food 
for the entire two days and two nights we were 
battling with the weather. From this time on 
we satisfied our thirst by eating snow and ice— 
“hard water” as the genial Sprague insisted on 
calling it! 
That night in the crevasse every few minutes 
the ice would snap with a sharp, short twing 
accompanied by a perceptible movement, never 
more than the smallest fraction of an inch but 
an unmistakable slipping, a movement which 
would probably not be noticed from the surface 
above. The whole field of ice seemed to be on 
the move. Occasionally there would be a roar 
like a twelve-inch gun, more or less subdued 
according to the distance, as some new crevasse 
came into existence. In 1832, when the old 
Dutch general, Chasse, was talking to the 
French from the ramparts of Antwerp, it is 
claimed that the cannonading was heard in the 
deep mines of Saxony three hundred miles 
away. In our refrigeration on Mt. Baker we 
could hear the cracking of the glaciers for miles 
and miles through on the opposite side of the 
mountain, and faint rumbling, which may have 
been due to the grinding of the ice upon the 
