directed towards designing the right kind of boat in which to ascend
the Susitna and its tributary the Chulitna till they reached the
glaciers. The party consisted of eight, including a young man from
Seattle, Mr. Merl La Voy, who was exceptionally fitted by Providence
for the work of a pioneer. The present writer had many dealings with
Mr. La Voy during the Great War, and can confidently say that he
never met any one more intrepid, audacious, and resourceful.
It was a summer-time expedition, and the party left Susitna station
on the 26th May. The ascent of the two rivers was difficult and
exciting enough, but they reached without misadventure the foot of
the Tokositna tributary, where they established their base camp.
This camp was thirty-seven and a half miles from Mount McKinley, and
a few miles away was the terminal moraine of a great glacier, which
they hoped would give them a roadway to the mountain. Up that
glacier they would have to carry all their belongings on their backs.
In Mr. Belmore Browne's narrative there is an interesting passage
describing the process by which men are hardened to wilderness work.
"The day's work consisted in travelling through brush, soft sand,
swamps, and glacier streams for about ten hours. With the exception
of one or two men, who put a biscuit in their pockets, we took no
food with us. The day's work was in no way difficult, for we carried
(during the preliminary reconnaissance) no loads; our condition from
the _civilized standpoint_ was splendid; we were well-fed,
sun-browned, and fairly hard--and yet we all came into camp
_thoroughly tired out_. Two months after our adventures on Mount
McKinley's ice flanks we came down through the same stretch of
country. The snow, however, had melted, leaving dense thickets
through which we had to chop our way; mosquitoes hung in clouds, and
four of us ... were carrying packs running from 95 to 120 lbs. From
the civilized standpoint _we were not well-fed_ and we did not look
well--our eyes and cheeks were sunken and our bodies were worn down
to bone and sinew; and yet we came into camp as fresh and happy as
children, and after a bite to eat and a smoke we could have gone on
cheerfully."
It was no light task carrying an outfit of 1,200 lbs. over the
thirty-seven and a half miles of glacier, a distance which by the
actual route used was much farther. Most of the weight was in
pemmican and alcohol for the stoves. The pemmican consisted of
pulverized raw meat, mixed with sugar, raisins, currants, and tallow.
Their principal drink was tea. On 11th June they had their last wood
fire, and after that there was only the stove. The days were spent
in sheer hard navvy labour, trudging along on snow-shoes under heavy
packs, and trotting back for others. They had various misadventures.
Frequent blizzards of wind and snow compelled them to shut up their
tent fast at night, with the result that on one occasion they were
nearly asphyxiated.
On 27th June they reached the head of the main glacier, beyond which,
through a narrow gorge, a secondary glacier descended from the
mountains, Another glacier came down on their right, and here they
achieved an interesting piece of detective work. At the top of it
they saw some peaks which recalled an illustration in Dr. Cook's
book. The illustration purported to be the summit of Mount McKinley,
and showed on the left a rock shoulder which Dr. Cook described as a
cliff of 8,000 feet. It was really a faked picture of the small
peaks at the head of this glacier, miles and miles from the main
mountain, and the cliff of 8,000 feet turned out only to rise 300
feet above the floor, and to be only 5,300 feet above sea-level. One
legend at any rate had been dispelled for ever.
Now began the patient relaying of provisions up the great gorge. It
was desperately hard manual labour, their faces were burnt black by
the glare of the sun, and every now and then there would be a slip
into a crevasse, which only the highest good fortune saved from being
a tragedy. After thirty-six days of hard travelling, they were at
last within two miles of the base of the southern cliffs of Mount
McKinley. They found themselves in a great ice basin, hemmed in by
colossal precipices down which avalanches thundered. Before them
rose the mountain, 15,000 feet of rock and ice. Their glasses showed
them that the South-West ridge became utterly unclimbable after an
altitude of about 15,000 feet. The southern North-East ridge looked
more promising, and to this they turned their attention. In that
Northern summer there was no dark. "The advance and retreat of the
night shadows went on with scarcely a pause, and sometimes we would
be uncertain whether the Alpine glow on the big mountain's icy crest
was the light of the rising or the setting sun." They had now a
short spell of rest from their toil; and as the mind of man on such
occasions turns to food, they invented out of their scanty larder a
new pudding. Here is the recipe.
"First soak three broken hard-tack in snow-water until they are soft.
Add 60 raisins and pemmican the size of 4½ eggs. Stir slowly but
energetically until the mess is thoroughly amalgamated. Boil slowly
over an alcohol stove, add three tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar,
and serve in a granite-ware cup."
But between them and the North-East ridge lay a gigantic _serac_.
For a day and a half they lay storm-bound under it, and then, on the
morning of 11th July, tried to cut their way up the ice wall. It
proved most difficult and dangerous work, and presently, owing to the
diminishing provisions, they realized it was impossible. Again and
again they attempted it, for only that way was there a road to the
North-East ridges. But at last they had to give it up as hopeless,
and turn their attention to the South-West _arête_.
This, too, proved too hard for them. They laboured on under constant
ice-falls and avalanches, and reached a height of 10,300 feet, where
they had perforce to halt. During these days they saw some
marvellous mountain scenery. "The whole of the great cliffs of the
box-cañon appeared at first glance to be on fire. Unnumbered
thousands of tons of soft snow were avalanching from the southern
flanks of Mount McKinley on to the glacier floor 5,000 feet below.
The snow fell so far that it was broken into heavy clouds that rolled
downward like heavy waves. The force of the rolling mass was
terrific, and as it struck the blue-green glacier mail it threw a
great snow cloud that raced like a live thing for 500 feet; whirling
in the wind the avalanche had caused, the white wall swept across the
valley, and almost before we were aware of it we were struggling and
choking in a blinding and stinging cloud of ice dust."
They began their retreat, and their return to greenery and summer out
of a hyperborean hell was like a man's recovery from a dangerous
illness. Though the expedition failed, they were a merry party, for
though every man was sunken-eyed and lean and hatchet-faced, he was
in the pink of condition. It was nothing to them to carry a load of
120 lbs., which would have broken their backs in the first days. The
party included men of diverse temperaments and multifarious
attainments, and Mr. La Voy observed, "It is an education to travel
with a bunch like ours; if anything should happen you can listen to a
whole dictionary." In the end they came to their cache on the
Chulitna, and they emptied it as children empty their Christmas
stockings. "We were actually ravenous," says Mr. Belmore Browne,
"and as jars of chow-chow, cans of maple-syrup, and tins of meat
appeared we hugged them in our arms and danced delirious dances on
the sand! One of the great truths of life that one learns to
understand in the North is that it is well worth while to go without
the things one wants, for the greater the sacrifice the greater the
reward when the wish is consummated. I have eaten with all manner of
hungry men, from the sun-browned riders of the sage to the
bidarka-men of the Aleutians, and I have feasted joyously on
'seal-liver,' 'seagull-omelets,' and 'caribou spinach'; but never
have I seen men eat more, or better food!"
II
As soon as the explorers returned to civilization they began to plan
a third attempt. It was clear to them that the western and southern
faces of the mountain were impracticable, and that their best chance
was on the North-East ridge. This, however, could not be approached
from the south; so it became their object to get in on the north
side. Their explorations in 1910 had proved the difficulties of a
summer trip, for loads had to be transported on men's backs over many
miles of glacier. They therefore decided to make a winter expedition
of it and to use Alaskan dog teams. The best route seemed to be up
the Susitna and Chulitna rivers, and they hoped somewhere near the
head of the Chulitna to find a pass in the Alaskan range which would
take them round the north face of Mount McKinley.
[Illustration: Mount McKinley: View of the Southern Approach. (_From
the painting by Mr. Belmore Browne. By permission of Messrs.
Putnam's Sons._)]
In October, 1911, Mr. La Voy began to relay supplies up the Chulitna,
the plan being for him to join Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore
Browne at Susitna in February of 1912. As Cook Inlet is choked by
ice during winter the travellers had to leave the steamer at Seward,
and make a long and difficult overland journey by way of Glacier City
and the Knik fjord to the Susitna River. There they found Mr. La Voy
with the dog teams. He reported that he had taken the bulk of the
outfit to a cache on the Chulitna, several miles beyond the mouth of
the Tokositna.
The journey up the Susitna, which was now a flat snow trail, went
easily and pleasantly. When they reached the cache they found to
their disgust that a wolverine, which is the arch-fiend of those
northern wildernesses, had managed to break in, though it was placed
for greater security on a platform of logs among the trees. The
brute had destroyed a good deal of the dog-feed and bacon, and a new
and expensive camera of Mr. La Voy's, which had been swung on the top
of a 30-foot pole. The wolverine had climbed the pole, cut off the
corners of the leather case, and gnawed its way into the camera!
From the cache began a long system of relays, for it was impossible
to carry all the equipment in one journey. There was now no trail,
and a road had to be "broken" before each stage. The route lay up
the Chulitna, and the travellers hoped to find some large stream
coming down on their left which would indicate a gap in the Alaskan
range. Any such gap would, of course, be filled with glaciers, the
water from which must form a river. On the whole, winter travelling
compared favourably with summer. The men used snow-shoes to break
the trail, and after equipment had been transported for five miles,
returned on the empty sleds for new loads. Winter had not killed all
signs of wild life, though hunting was difficult, and the snow was
dotted with the tracks of innumerable wild things. Even a finch was
heard singing. Camping was perfectly comfortable, and in a tent with
the stove lit and beds of green spruce prepared, the nights were warm
and peaceful.
At last, as the trees began to thin, they came to a point where the
valley split and a great cañon turned north towards the range.
Travel now became rougher, for the broad level flats gave way to
snow-covered rapids and big drifts. As they advanced up the gorge a
glacier was seen winding down from the centre of the mountains. One
night Mr. Belmore Browne had an accident which might have proved
serious. He went out to shoot an owl for food, and as the ejector of
his little rifle had been removed the cartridge came back on his eye
and just missed his right eyeball. It gave him an eerie feeling to
see the friendly dogs lapping up the bloodstained snow. Shortly
after he made a reconnaissance of twenty-five miles ahead, and found
the glacier they had seen from afar off running like a great white
road into the hills. The route seemed possible, but there were ugly
ice precipices at the head which suggested that the crossing of the
pass might not be easy.
A second reconnaissance took him to the head of the glacier. At
first no crossing could be discerned, but suddenly at the head of the
right-hand basin the mountains broke away and he saw a smooth
snow-field leading to the crest. He climbed to the top of it, and at
first saw nothing but a sheer precipice. At length, however, he
discovered on the right a gentle snow slope leading down into a great
snow cup, and realized that the pass could be crossed.
On 3rd April the main camp was pushed up to a height of 6,000 feet.
Then came a delay from a blizzard, which confined the explorers for
twenty-four hours to their tents. It was bitterly cold, and
everything, including the alarm clock, froze stiff. They managed,
however, to get a little fire with an empty pemmican case, and, with
the stove, had a sort of party in the tent--men, dogs, and
everything. The party was, however, unceremoniously broken up by one
of the dogs backing into the stove, and filling the tent with a cloud
of smoke from singed hair.
Next morning they crossed the divide, partly shooting and partly
lowering their belongings over the 1,000-feet drop into the hollow.
They were no sooner across when another blizzard arrived, and they
were storm-bound for thirty-six hours. But their spirits were high.
For the time they were done with uphill climbs, and they saw that by
crossing a low pass at the head of another glacier they could reach
the great Muldrow Glacier, which had been known to the world since
1902. This glacier would take them into the very heart of the
mountain.
Without much difficulty they crossed the pass, and, descending to the
Muldrow moraine, they realized with joy that they were on the
northern side of the Alaskan range. It was now nearly the middle of
April, and they found themselves in the kind of country that hunters
dream of. There was a chance of fresh meat, and, to men who had been
seventeen days on the ice, the hope of a change in their menu and the
sight of vegetation were an intoxication. Mr. Belmore Browne went
out one morning, and fell in with a herd of white sheep (_Ovis
Dalli_). He secured three, and that night the camp feasted. "In
cold weather," he writes, "one has a craving for fat, and in the
wilderness one is less particular about the way meat is cooked. Our
desire for fat was so intense that we tried eating the raw meat, and
finding it good beyond words, we ate freely of the fresh mutton. I
can easily understand now why savage tribes make a practice of eating
uncooked flesh." The white sheep was not the only game. There was a
special variety of caribou; there was the Alaskan moose; there was an
occasional grizzly; and there were quantities of ptarmigan. The
travellers showed the most sportsmanlike spirit in refraining from
killing females or immature beasts.
From the Muldrow Glacier they turned westward and struck the McKinley
fork of the Kantishna River, which flows to the Yukon. Presently
they were in timber country, and realized that they had crossed the
Alaskan range "from wood to wood," and incidentally had added two new
glacier systems to the map. After snow and ice and pemmican they had
greenery and fresh meat, and, as they worked their way to the
lowlands, the first flush of spring. Above all, they had the
North-East ridges (of which there were three) above them to offer an
apparently possible route to the summit. They saw a glacier running
between the central and northern North-East ridges which they decided
would be their road. Mr. Belmore Browne went out to prospect, and,
climbing the head of a valley, found himself looking down upon the
upper Muldrow Glacier, which he now realized was split in two by the
central North-East ridge. He saw also that the northern branch of it
gave a road to the very base of the central peak.
A base camp was established on 24th April, and four days later began
the chief reconnaissance. They took with them a dog team, and, for
equipment, their mountain tent, instruments, alcohol lamps, and
provisions of pemmican, chocolate, hard-tack, sugar, and raisins.
The total outfit weighed about 600 lbs. They started at night, when
the snow was in better condition, and found the northern branch of
the Muldrow, which they called the McKinley Glacier, rising in steps
like a huge staircase. Camp was pitched at the base of a serac
between two great cliffs of solid blue ice.
On 3rd May they reached the top of the serac at an altitude of 8,500
feet, after a very difficult journey. Mr. La Voy, who was leading,
fell into a crevasse, and the strain on the rope pulled Mr. Belmore
Browne to the very edge. Mr. La Voy, however, stuck on a ledge of
ice, which eased the strain; without that ledge it may well be that
the whole expedition would have ended in tragedy. Bit by bit they
fought their way to the head of the glacier, suffering severely from
the glare of the sun, though the temperature was only one degree
above freezing. They had now attained an altitude of 11,000 feet,
and saw a low col on the mountain ridge, where they decided to make a
high camp. This would be about 12,000 feet high, which would leave
them between 3,000 and 5,000 more feet to climb before they reached
the basin between the north and south peaks. It was now time to send
the dogs home; so, after caching their equipment, they started back
for the base camp, which they reached on the evening of 8th May.
Some pleasant days were spent at the base camp. When they left it
the countryside had still been in the grip of winter, but now
everywhere there were grass and flowers and running streams. So far
they had managed well. They had crossed the Alaskan range early
enough to find the snow in good condition for dog sledding, and they
had cached 300 lbs. weight of mountain provisions at 11,000 feet.
They could therefore afford to wait till the days lengthened before
venturing on a final climb. Here is Mr. Belmore Browne's picture of
the landscape:--
"The mountain country at the northern base of Mount McKinley is the
most beautiful stretch of wilderness that I have ever seen, and I
will never forget those wonderful days when I followed up the velvety
valleys or clambered among the high rocky peaks as my fancy led me.
In the late evening I have trotted downward through valleys that were
so beautiful that I was forced against my will to lie down in the
soft grass and drink in the wild beauty of the spot, although I knew
that I would be late for supper, and that the stove would be cold.
The mountains were bare of vegetation, with the exception of velvety
carpets of green grass that swept downward from the snow-fields; in
the centres of the cup-shaped hollows ran streams of crystal-clear
water; as the sun sank lower and lower the hills would turn a darker
blue, until the cold, clean air from the snow-fields would remind you
that night was come and that camp was far away."
[Illustration: The Summit of Mount McKinley. (_From photographs by
Mr. Belmore Browne. By permission of Messrs. Putnam's Sons._)]
The sight of big avalanches on Mount McKinley warned the explorers
that great risks had to be faced. On the 5th day of June they
started out for their final attack. Unfortunately the weather became
very bad, and soon they were enveloped in a heavy snowstorm. Mr. La
Voy had hurt his knee hunting, and the ascent through the seracs was
for him very arduous. The nervous strain, too, was great, for they
had to be perpetually on the outlook for avalanches. They feared
that one might have buried their cache, and it was an immense relief
when they reached the 11,000-feet point and saw the top of their sled
sticking out of the snow.
They now moved their supplies up to a camp on the col of the ridge at
a height of 11,800 feet. On 19th June they made a reconnaissance,
taking with them food for six days, and intending to climb up to the
big basin between the two main peaks. They reached a height of
13,200 feet up a sensational _arête_, when Mr. La Voy's knee gave out
and they were compelled to return. Three days later they made a camp
on the ridge at 13,600 feet. It was a wild and most laborious
journey, with a drop of 5,000 feet on the left and of 2,000 on the
right. It would take them two hours of hard work to make 500 feet.
Apart from the handicap of Mr. La Voy's knee, Mr. Belmore Browne's
eyes were very bad. They now realized that they could not reach the
summit with their food supply of six days' rations, and they were
forced to change their plans, and go back for more food.
They returned to the camp on the col and packed up ten days' rations.
With tremendous difficulty they transported them up to a 15,000-feet
camp on the ridge, where they were on the edge of the big
glacier-filled basin between the two summits. All three found their
health beginning to suffer. The pemmican proved to be impossible
food, giving them all violent stomach pains, and they were forced to
confine themselves to tea and hard-tack. The cold was intense, and
inside the tent, with the alcohol stove burning and the warmth of
three bodies, the temperature at 7.30 p.m. was five degrees below
zero, and three hours later nineteen degrees below zero. "Despite
elaborate precautions," says Mr. Belmore Browne, "I can say in all
honesty that I did not have a single night's normal sleep above
15,000 feet on account of the cold." By this time their appearance
was, as Mr. La Voy said, "sufficient to frighten children into the
straight and narrow path." All were more or less snow-blind, burnt
black, unshaven, with lips, noses, and hands swollen, cracked, and
bleeding.
On 27th June the packs were carried in relays to just under the last
serac, which was the highest point in the big basin. The altitude
was 16,615 feet. Their one comfort was that a snow-field seemed to
lead easily up to the sky-line of the central North-East ridge, and
that from there they saw what appeared to be a reasonable gradient to
the final summit. On 28th June they rested and prepared for their
last effort. They were now convinced that nothing could stop them
except storm. The night was fine, and the weather promised well for
the morrow. The summit appeared to them to be nearly flat with a
slight hummocky rise, which must be the highest point in North
America.
On 29th June they left camp at 6 a.m., moving very quietly and
steadily and conserving their strength. Mr. La Voy and Mr. Belmore
Browne led alternately. Slowly they made their way up the snow
slopes at the rate of about 400 feet an hour. At 18,500 feet they
stopped and congratulated each other, for they had beaten the Duke of
the Abruzzi's record on Mount St. Elias. Presently they were on the
sky-line of the ridge, and looking down on the arena where they had
struggled two years before. Now, for the first time, came a threat
from the weather. The sky was clear to the north, but from the south
a great sea of clouds rolled against the mountain like surf on a
shore.
As they moved up the ridge breathing became more difficult. At
19,000 feet they had passed the last rock, and were looking at the
summit. It rose as innocently as a snow-covered tennis court, but
now the wind was rising and the southern sky darkening, and just at
the base of the last lift the gale broke. In a fierce scurry of snow
they crawled up the round dome, Mr. La Voy leading and hacking steps.
Then came Mr. Belmore Browne's turn, and he realized that his hands
were freezing, and that the bitter wind was cutting through his
flesh. He dare not get dry mittens from his rucksack lest his hands
should be frozen during the change. When his second turn was
three-fourths finished, Professor Parker's barometer registered
20,000 feet, and they were within 300 feet of the top.
The rest was an evil dream. To each man the other two seemed to be
lost in the ice mist, and the cold was freezing their marrow. The
storm was growing fiercer, and as they topped a little rise its full
fury burst upon them. The story must be given in Mr. Belmore
Browne's own words:--