

Bi 
The Carbon and Winthrop Glaciers 
A trip across the north and north- 
eastern flanks of “Tacoma” is a mem- 
orable experience. Fairfax is the 
jumping-off place, a little coal-mining 
town on a branch line of the Northern 
Pacific railroad, about forty miles from 
Tacoma, the gateway to the Park. Its 
chief point of interest to the climber 
detained there over night is the bee- 
hive coke ovens vomitting flame into 
the starry sky. You pass the night 
on a rock-hard bed in the species of 
Rainier and Lower Moraine Park from a ridge of the 
Sluiskin Mountains. 
468 
The White Glacier and Little Tahoma. 


hotel peculiar to such regions, but 
Morpheus is soon victorious in that 
crisp, cool air. 
In the early hours of the morning 
the dull roar of the Carbon River boom- 
ing over its rocky bed convinces you 
that rain is pouring down outside, and 
you are not finally reassured until the 
streaks of sunlight on the bare floor 
give the lie to your fears. 
Nee an early breakfast and ar- 
rangements for packhorses_ to 
carry the supplies into the foot of the 
Carbon Glacier, you 
swing away in light 
marching order 
over the trail up 
the river. Rainier 
lifts its snowy head 
above the mountain 
range at the head 
of the valley, so 
huge and so near, 
apparently, that 
you mentally dis- 
count the long eigh- 
teen miles to the 
foot of the ice. The 
valley narrows rap- 
idly as you ascend 
the river which is 
soon walled in by 
high mountains. 
Shafts of sunlight 
pierce the forest 
aisles and the trail 
winds endlessly in 
and out and ever 
upward. 
At noon a halt is 
made for lunch at 
the Chenuis Falls 
near the junction 
of the creek of that 
name with the Carbon River. The 
falls lie just within the confines of 
the National Park, and it is a plea- 
sure to realize that their lovely set- 
ting will not be marred by the lumber- 
man, though who can say what our 
Nature Developers will not do? 
HE angle of the trail steepens 
above this point and you now be- 
gin to feel all the extra fat of which 
you were previously unconscious. 
Roots, rocks, and holes in the trail 
make ever-increasing demands on your 
attention. But the end is near. The 
trail descends from the mountainside 
to the gentler slopes of an old glacier 
moraine covered with a growth of moss 
and stunted trees, and terminates ab- 
ruptly in a thicket of alder bushes a 
few hundred yards below the foot of 
the Carbon Glacier. A wild yell an- 
nounces the arrival of the packhorses, 
and the after-dinner pipe at the river’s 
edge rounds out a perfect day. 
The scenery at this point is particu- 
larly impressive for wild and rugged 
grandeur. Mountain walls tower into 
the sky in sheer precipices for several 
thousand feet. To the westward across 
the Carbon River, Cataract Creek tum- 
bles down through a narrow breach in 
the Mother Mountains. Directly in 
front and half a mile up the valley, 
the cliffs of the Sluiskin Mountains on 
the east and the Mother Mountains on 
the west form a bottle-necked cleft less 
than a quarter of a mile in width. A 
hundred foot wall of dirty ice fills this 
cleft and is the terminus of the great 
Carbon Glacier whose source is seven 
thousand feet above and some five 
miles distant. The glacier broadens 
rapidly above its terminus and makes 
such a steep ascent in the first few 
miles that it looks like a gigantic slag 
heap, its harsh and ugly, brown, rock- 
covered slope in striking contrast to 
the soft coloring of the cliffs and the 
cool green of the alpine meadows 
crowning them. In the early eve- 
ning hours these hanging gardens are 
bathed in a warm yellow radiance 
while the depths below are deep purple 
and cold, raw gray. The booming of 
the river fills the air with a throbbing 
resonance. 
4 pate real work begins on the mor- 
row. We pray that it will not be 
heartbreaking, but that will depend 
upon the changeable moods of the gla- 
cier from year to year. At these low 
altitudes, 3,000 to 6,000 feet, the ice 
is completely masked with a layer of 
loose rocks and sand, the debris torn 
from the main mass of the peak by 
the undercutting of the ice and from 
fragments split off the glacier’s flanks 
by the frost. At high altitudes this 
rock cover forms long and narrow 
