mountain's foot, but in the Nisqually Valley, at Longmire Springs, the
winter snows are known often to exceed 20 feet in depth. The summer
heat at this low level (2,762 feet) is, of course, abundantly able to
remove all of it, at least by the end of May. But higher up every
thousand feet of elevation suffices to prolong appreciably the life of
the snowy cover. In Paradise Park, for instance, at altitudes between
5,000 and 6,000 feet, huge snowdrifts encumber the flowering meadows
until far into July. Above an altitude of 6,000 feet permanent drifts
and snow fields survive in certain favored spots, while at the
7,000-foot level the snow line, properly speaking, is reached. Above
this line considerable snow remains regularly from one winter to the
next, and extensive ice fields and glaciers exist even without
protection from the sun.
It is between the 8,000 and 10,000 foot levels, however, that one
meets with the conditions most favorable for the development of
glaciers. Below this zone the summer heat largely offsets the heavy
precipitation, while above it the snowfall itself is relatively scant.
Within the belt the annual addition of snow to the ice fields is
greater than anywhere else on Mount Rainier. The result is manifest in
the arrangement and distribution of the glaciers on the cone. By far
the greater number originate in the vicinity of the 10,000-foot level,
while those ice streams which cascade from the summit, such as the
Nisqually, are in a sense reborn some 4,000 feet lower down.
A striking example of an ice body nourished wholly by the snows
falling on the lower slope of Mount Rainier is the Paradise Glacier.
In no wise connected with the summit névés, it makes its start at an
elevation of less than 9,000 feet. Situated on the spreading slope
between the diverging canyons of the Nisqually on the west and of the
Cowlitz on the northeast, it constitutes a typical "interglacier," as
intermediate ice bodies of this kind are termed.
Its appearance is that of a gently undulating ice field, crevassed
only toward its lower edge and remarkably clean throughout. No
débris-shedding cliffs rise anywhere along its borders, and this fact,
no doubt, largely explains its freedom from morainal accumulations.
The absence of cliffs also implies a lack of protecting shade.
Practically the entire expanse of the glacier lies exposed to the full
glare of the sun. As a consequence its losses by melting are very
heavy, and a single hot summer may visibly diminish the glacier's
bulk. Nevertheless it seems to hold its own as well as any other
glacier on Mount Rainier, and this ability to recuperate finds its
explanation in the exceeding abundance of fresh snows that replenish
it every winter.
The Paradise Glacier, however, is not the product wholly of direct
precipitation from the clouds. Much of its mass is supplied by the
wind, and accumulates in the lee of the high ridge to the west, over
which the route to Camp Muir and Gibraltar Rock is laid. The westerly
gales keep this ridge almost bare of snow, permitting only a few
drifts to lodge in sheltered depressions. But east of the ridge there
are great eddies in which the snow forms long, smooth slopes that
descend several hundred feet to the main body of the glacier. These
slopes are particularly inviting to tourists for the delightful
"glissades" which they afford. Sitting down on the hard snow at the
head of such a slope, one may indulge in an exhilarating glide of
amazing swiftness, landing at last safely on the level snows beneath.
The generally smooth and united surface of the Paradise Glacier, it
may be added, contributes not a little to its attractiveness as a
field for alpine sports. On it one may roam at will without
apprehension of lurking peril; indeed one can journey across its
entire width, from Paradise Park to the Cowlitz Rocks, without
encountering a single dangerous fissure. This general absence of
crevasses is accounted for largely by the evenness of the glacier's
bed and by its hollow shape, owing to which the snows on all sides
press inward and compact the mass in the center. Only toward its
frontal margin, where the glacier plunges over an abrupt rock step, as
well as in the hump of that part known as Stevens Glacier, is the ice
rent by long crevasses and broken into narrow blades. Here it may be
wise for the inexperienced not to venture without a competent guide,
for the footing is apt to be treacherous, and jumping over crevasses
or crossing them by frail snow bridges are feats never accomplished
without risk.
In the early part of summer the Paradise Glacier has the appearance of
a vast, unbroken snow field, blazing, immaculate, in the sun. But
later, as the fresh snows melt away from its surface, grayish patches
of old crystalline ice develop in places, more especially toward the
glacier's lower margin. Day by day these patches expand until, by the
end of August, most of the lower ice field has been stripped of its
brilliant mantle. Its countenance, once bright and serene, now assumes
a grim expression and becomes crisscrossed by a thousand seams, like
the visage of an aged man.
Over this roughened surface trickle countless tiny rills which,
uniting, form swift rivulets and torrents, indeed veritable river
systems on a miniature scale that testify with eloquence to the
rapidity with which the sun consumes the snow. Strangely capricious in
course are these streamlets, for, while in the main gravitating with
the glacier's slope, they are ever likely to be caught and deflected
by the numerous seams in the ice. These seams, it should be explained,
are lines of former crevasses that have healed again under pressure in
the course of the glacier's slow descent. As a rule they inclose a
small amount of dirt, and owing to its presence are particularly
vulnerable to erosion. Along them the streamlets rapidly intrench
themselves--perhaps by virtue of their warmth, what little there is of
it, as much as by actual abrasion--and hollow out channels of a
freakish sort, here straight and canal-like, there making sharp zigzag
turns; again broadening into profound, canoe-shaped pools, or emptying
into deeper trenches by little sparkling cataracts, or passing under
tiny bridges and tunnels--a veritable toy land carved in ice.
But unfortunately these pretty features are ephemeral, many of them
changing from day to day; for, evenings, as the lowering sun withdraws
its heat, the melting gradually comes to a halt, and the little
streams cease to flow. The soft babbling and gurgling and the often
exquisitely melodious tinkle of dripping water in hidden glacial wells
are hushed, and the silent frost proceeds to choke up passages and
channels, so that next day's waters have to seek new avenues.
In the region where the new crevasses open the surface drainage comes
abruptly to an end. Here gaping chutes of deepest azure entrap the
torrents and the waters rush with musical thunder to the interior of
the glacier and finally down to its bed.
At its lower border the Paradise Glacier splits into several lobes.
The westernmost sends forth the Paradise River, which, turning
southwestward, plunges over the Sluiskin Fall (named for the Klickitat
Indian who guided Van Trump and Hazard Stevens to the mountain in
1870, when they made the first successful ascent) and runs the length
of Paradise Valley. The middle lobe has become known as Stevens
Glacier (named for Hazard Stevens) and ends in Stevens Creek, a stream
which almost immediately drops over a precipice of some 600 feet--the
Fairy Falls--and winds southeastward through rugged Stevens Canyon.
The easternmost lobes, known collectively as Williwakas Glacier, send
forth two little cascades, which, uniting, form Williwakas Creek. This
stream is a tributary of the Cowlitz River, as is Stevens Creek.
Immediately adjoining the Paradise Glacier on the northeast, and not
separated from it by any definite barrier, lies the Cowlitz Glacier,
one of the stateliest ice streams of Mount Rainier. It flows in a
southeasterly direction, and burrows its nose deeply into the
forest-covered hills at the mountain's foot. Its upper course consists
of two parallel-flowing ice streams, intrenched in profound troughs,
which they have enlarged laterally until now only a narrow, ragged
crest of rock remains between them, resembling a partition a thousand
feet in height. At the upper end of this crest stands Gibraltar Rock.
At the point of confluence of the two branches there begins a long
medial moraine that stretches like a black tape the whole length of
the lower course. To judge by its position midway on the glacier's
back, the two tributaries must be very nearly equal in strength, yet,
when traced to their sources, they are found to originate in widely
different ways. The north branch, named Ingraham Glacier (after Maj.
E. S. Ingraham, one of Rainier's foremost pioneers), comes from the
névés on the summit; while the south branch heads in a pocket
immediately under Gibraltar. No snow comes to it from the summit;
hence we can not escape the conclusion that it receives through direct
precipitation and through wind drifting about as much snow as its
sister branch receives from the summit regions. Like the glacier
troughs below, the pocket appears to have widened laterally under the
influence of the ice, and is now separated from the Nisqually ice
fields to the west by only a narrow rock partition, the Cowlitz
Cleaver, as it is locally called. Up this narrow crest the route to
Gibraltar Rock ascends. The name "cleaver," it may be said in passing,
is most apt for the designation of a narrow rock crest of this sort,
and well deserves to be more generally used in the place of awkward
foreign terms, such as arrete and grat.
Both branches of the Cowlitz Glacier cascade steeply immediately above
their confluence, but the lower glacier has a gentle gradient and a
fairly uneventful course. Like the lower Nisqually, it is bordered by
long morainal ridges, and toward its end acquires broad marginal dirt
bands. For nearly a mile these continue, leaving a gradually narrowing
lane of clear ice between them. Then they coalesce and the whole ice
body becomes strewn with rock débris.
The Cowlitz Glacier, including its north branch, the Ingraham Glacier,
measures slightly over 6 miles in length. Throughout that distance the
ice stream lies sunk in a steep-walled canyon of its own carving.
Imposing cliffs of columnar basalt, ribbed as if draped in corduroy,
overlook its lower course. Slender waterfalls glide down their
precipitous fronts, like silver threads, guided by the basalt
flutings.
From the end of the glacier issues the Muddy Fork of the Cowlitz
River, which, joining the Ohanapecosh, forms the Cowlitz River proper,
one of the largest streams of the Cascade Range. For nearly a hundred
miles the Cowlitz River follows a southwesterly course, finally
emptying in the Columbia River a short distance below Portland,
Oregon.
The name Muddy Fork is a most apt one, for the stream leaves the
glacier heavily charged with débris and mud, and while it gradually
clears itself as it proceeds over its gravelly bed, it is still turbid
when it reaches the Ohanapecosh. That stream is relatively clear, for
it heads in a glacier of small extent and little eroding power, and
consequently begins its career with but a moderate load; furthermore
it receives on its long circuitous course a number of tributaries from
the Cascade Range, all of them containing clear water.
The name Muddy, however, might with equal appropriateness be given to
every one of the streams flowing from the ice fields of Mount Rainier.
So easily disintegrated are the volcanic materials of which that peak
is composed, that the glaciers are enabled to erode with great
rapidity, even in their present shrunken state. They consequently
deliver to the streams vast quantities of débris, much of it in the
form of cobbles and bowlders, but much of it also in the form of "rock
flour."
A considerable proportion of a glacier's erosional work is performed
by abrasion or grinding, its bed being scoured and grooved by the rock
blocks and smaller débris held by the passing ice. As a result glacier
streams ordinarily carry much finely comminuted rock, or rock flour,
and this, because of its fineness, remains long in suspension and
imparts to the water a distinctive color. In regions of light-colored
rocks the glacier streams have a characteristic milky hue, which, as
it fades out, passes over into a delicate turquoise tint. But the
lavas of Mount Rainier produce for the most part dark-hued flour, and
as a consequence the rivers coming from that peak are dyed a somber
chocolate brown.
A word may not be out of place here about the sharp daily fluctuations
of the ice-fed rivers of the Mount Rainier National Park, especially
in view of the difficulties these streams present to crossing. There
are fully a score of turbulent rivers radiating from the peak, and as
a consequence one can not journey far through the park without being
obliged to cross one of them. On all the permanent trails substantial
bridges obviate the difficulty, but in the less developed portions of
the park, fording is still the only method available. It is well to
bear in mind that these rivers, being nourished by melting snow,
differ greatly in habit from streams in countries where glaciers are
absent. Generally speaking, they are highest in summer and lowest in
winter; also, since their flow is intimately dependent upon the
quantity of snow being melted at a given time, it follows that in
summer when the sun reaches its greatest power they swell daily to a
prodigious volume, reaching a maximum in the afternoon, while during
the night and early morning hours they again ebb to a relatively
moderate size. In the forenoon of a warm summer day one may watch them
grow hourly in volume and in violence, until toward the middle of the
day they become raging torrents of liquid mud in which heavy cobbles
and even bowlders may be heard booming as they roll before the
current. It would be nothing short of folly to attempt to ford under
these conditions, whether on horseback or on foot. In the evening,
however, and still better, in the early morning, one may cross with
safety; the streams then have the appearance of mere mountain brooks
wandering harmlessly over broad bowlder beds.
High above the Ingraham Glacier towers that sharp, residual mass of
lava strata known as Little Tahoma (11,117 feet), the highest
outstanding eminence on the flank of Mount Rainier. It forms a
gigantic "wedge" that divides the Ingraham from the Emmons Glacier to
the north. So extensive is this wedge that it carries on its back
several large ice fields and interglaciers, some of which, lying far
from the beaten path of the tourist, are as yet unnamed. Separating
them from each other are various attenuated, pinnacled crests, all of
them subordinate to a main backbone that runs eastward some 6 miles
and terminates in the Cowlitz Chimneys (7,607 feet), a group of tall
rock towers that dominate the landscape on the east side of Mount
Rainier.
Most of the ice fields, naturally, lie on the shady north slope of the
main backbone; in fact, a series of them extends as far east as the
Cowlitz Chimneys. One of the lesser crests, however, that running
southeastward to the upland region known as Cowlitz Park, also gives
protection to an ice body of some magnitude, the Ohanapecosh Glacier.
Considerably broader than it is long in the direction of its flow,
this glacier lies on a high shelf a mile and a half across, whence it
cascades down into the head of a walled-in canyon. Formerly, no doubt,
it more than filled this canyon, but now it sends down only a shrunken
lobe. The stream that issues from it, the Ohanapecosh River, is really
the main prong and head of the Cowlitz River.
The largest and most elevated of the ice fields east of Little Tahoma
is known for its peculiar shape as Fryingpan Glacier. It covers fully
3 square miles of ground and constitutes the most extensive and most
beautiful interglacier on Mount Rainier. It originates in the hollow
east side of Little Tahoma itself and descends rapidly northward,
overlooking the great Emmons Glacier and finally reaching down almost
to its level. It is not a long time since the two ice bodies were
confluent.
The eastern portion of the Fryingpan Glacier drains northeastward and
sends forth several cascading torrents which, uniting with others
coming from the lesser ice fields to the east, form the Fryingpan
River, a brisk stream that joins White River several miles farther
north.
Below the Fryingpan Glacier there lies a region of charming
flower-dotted meadows named Summerland, a most attractive spot for
camping.
Cloaking almost the entire east side of Mount Rainier is the Emmons
Glacier, the most extensive ice stream on the peak (named after Samuel
F. Emmons, the geologist and mountaineer who was the second to conquer
the peak in 1870). About 5-1/2 miles long and 1-3/4 miles wide in its
upper half, it covers almost 8 square miles of territory. It makes a
continuous descent from the summit to the base, the rim of the old
crater having almost completely broken down under its heavy névé
cascades. But two small remnants of the rim still protrude through the
ice and divide it into three cascades. From each of these dark rock
islands trails a long medial moraine that extends in an
ever-broadening band down to the foot of the glacier.
Conspicuous lateral moraines accompany the ice stream on each side.
There are several parallel ridges of this sort, disposed in successive
tiers above each other on the valley sides. Most impressively do they
attest the extent of the Emmons Glacier's recent shrinking. The
youngest moraine, fresh looking as if deposited only yesterday, lies
but 50 feet above the glacier's surface and a scant 100 feet distant
from its edge; the older ridges, subdued in outline, and already
tinged with verdure, lie several hundred feet higher on the slope.
The Emmons Glacier, like the Nisqually and the Cowlitz, becomes
densely littered with morainal débris at its lower end, maintaining,
however, for a considerable distance a central lane of clear ice. The
stream which it sends forth, White River, is the largest of all the
ice-fed streams radiating from the peak. It flows northward and then
turns in a northwesterly direction, emptying finally in Puget Sound
at the city of Seattle.
On the northeast side of the mountain, descending from the same high
névés as the Emmons Glacier, is the Winthrop Glacier. Not until
halfway down, at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, does it detach
itself as a separate ice stream. The division takes place at the apex
of that great triangular interspace so aptly named "the Wedge." Upon
its sharp cliff edge, Steamboat Prow, the descending névés part, it
has been said, like swift-flowing waters upon the dividing bow of a
ship at anchor. The simile is an excellent one; even the long foam
crest, rising along the ship's side, is represented by a wave of ice.
Undoubtedly the Wedge formerly headed much higher up on the mountain's
flank. Perhaps it extended upward in the form of a long, attenuated
"cleaver." It is easy to see how the ice masses impinging upon it have
reduced it to successively lower levels. They are still unrelentingly
at work. It is on the back of the Wedge, it may be added here, that is
situated that small ice body which Maj. Ingraham named the
"Interglacier." That name has since been applied in a generic sense to
all similar ice bodies lying on the backs of "wedges."
Of greatest interest on the Winthrop Glacier are the ice cascades and
domes. Evidently the glacier's bed is a very uneven one, giving rise
to falls and pools, such as one observes in a turbulent trout stream.
The cascades explain themselves readily enough, but the domes require
a word of interpretation. They are underlain by rounded bosses of
especially resistant rock. Over these the ice is lifted, much as is
the water of a swift mountain torrent over submerged bowlders.
Immediately above each obstruction the ice appears compact and free
from crevasses, but as it reaches the top and begins to pour over it
breaks, and a network of intersecting cracks divides it into erect,
angular blocks and fantastic obelisks. Below each dome there is, as a
rule, a deep hollow partly inclosed by trailing ice ridges, analogous
to the whirling eddy that occurs normally below a bowlder in a brook.
Thus does a glacier simulate a stream of water even in its minor
details.
The domes of the Winthrop Glacier measure 50 to 60 feet in height. A
sample of the kind of obstruction that produces them appears, as if
specially provided to satisfy human curiosity, near the terminus of
the glacier. There one may see, close to the west wall of the
troughlike bed, a projecting rock mass, rounded and smoothly polished,
over which the glacier rode but a short time ago.
Another feature of interest sometimes met with on the Winthrop
Glacier, and for that matter also on the other ice streams of Mount
Rainier, are the "glacier tables." These consist of slabs of rock
mounted each on a pedestal of snow and producing the effect of huge
toadstools. The slabs are always of large size, while the pedestals
vary from a few inches to several feet in height.
The origin of the rocks may be traced to cliffs of incoherent volcanic
materials that disintegrate under the frequent alternations of frost
and thaw and send down periodic rock avalanches, the larger fragments
of which bound out far upon the glacier's surface.
The snow immediately under these large fragments is effectually
protected from the sun and does not melt, while the surrounding snow,
being unprotected, is constantly wasting away, often at the rate of
several inches per day. Thus in time each rock is left poised on a
column of its own conserving. There is, however, a limit to the height
which such a column can attain, for as soon as it begins to exceed a
certain height the protecting shadow of the capping stone no longer
reaches down to the base of the pedestal and the slanting rays of the
sun soon undermine it. More commonly, however, the south side of the
column becomes softened both by heat transmitted from the sun-warmed
south edge of the stone, as well as by heat reflected from the
surrounding glacier surface, and as a consequence the table begins to
tilt. On very hot days, in fact, the inclination of the table keeps
pace with the progress of the sun, much after the manner of a
sun-loving flower, the slant being to the southeast in the forenoon
and to the southwest in the afternoon. As the snow pillar increases in
height it becomes more and more exposed and the tilting is
accentuated, until at last the rock slides down.
In its new position the slab at once begins to generate a new
pedestal, from which in due time it again slides down, and so the
process may be repeated several times in the course of a single
summer, the rock shifting its location by successive slips an
appreciable distance across the glacier in a southerly direction.