An Expedition to Mount St. Elias, Alaska

by Israel C. Russell

Pressing on, I found that the terrace on which I was traveling at length became a free ridge, some three hundred feet high, with steep slopes on either side, like a huge railroad embankment. This ridge swept across the valley in a graceful curve, and shut off a portion of the western part of the amphitheatre from the general drainage. In the portion thus isolated there was a lake without an outlet, still frozen. The snow banks bordering the frozen lake were traced in every direction by the trails of bears. Continuing my tramp, I crossed broad snow-fields, climbed the ridge to the westward, and obtained a far-reaching, unobstructed view of the surrounding country. The elevation reached was only about 1,500 feet above sea-level, but was above the timber line. The mountain slopes toward the north were bare of vegetation and generally covered with snow.

The first object to claim attention was the huge pyramid forming the summit of Mount St. Elias, which stood out clear and sharp against the northwestern sky. Although thirty-six miles distant, it dominated all other peaks in view and rose far above the rugged crests of nearer ranges, many of which would have been counted magnificent mountains in a less rugged land. This was the first view of the great peak obtained by any of our party. Not a cloud obscured the defination of the mountain; and the wonderful transparency of the atmosphere, after so many days of mist and rain, was something seldom if ever equalled in less humid lands.

Much nearer than St. Elias, and a little west of north of my station, rose Mount Cook, one of the most beautiful peaks in the region. Its summit, unlike the isolated pyramid in which St. Elias terminates, is formed of three white domes, with here and there subordinate pinnacles of pure white, shooting up from the snow-fields like great crystals. On the southern side of Mount Cook there are several rugged and angular ridges, which sweep away for many miles and project like headlands into the sea of ice, known as the Malaspina glacier, bordering the ocean toward the southwest. Between the main ridges there are huge trunk glaciers, each contributing its flood of ice to the great glacier below; and each secondary valley and each amphitheatre among the peaks, no matter how small, has its individual glacier, and the majority of these are tributary to the larger ice-streams. All the mountains in sight exceeding 2,000 feet in elevation were white with snow, except the sharpest ridges and boldest precipices. The attention of the geologist is attracted by the fact that all the foot-hills of Mount Cook are composed of gray sandstone and black shale; and he also observes that the angular mountain crest so sharply drawn against the sky furnishes abundant evidence that the mountains were never subjected to the abrasion of a continuous ice-sheet.

As I stood on the steep-sloped ridge, the Atrevida and Lucia glaciers, their surfaces covered from side to side with angular masses of sandstone and shale, lay at my feet; while farther up the valley the débris on the surface of the ice disappeared, and all above was a winter landscape. The brown, desolate débris-fields on the glacier at my feet extended far southward, and covered the expanded ice-foot in which the glacier terminates. Most curious of all was the fact that the moraines on the lower border of the glacier were concealed from view by a dense covering of vegetation, and in places were clothed with forests of spruce trees.

To the southward, beyond the end of the Lucia glacier, and separated from it by a torrent-swept bowlder-bed, lay a vast plateau of ice which stretched toward the south and west farther than the eye could reach. This is the Malaspina glacier, shown on plate 8. Its borders, like the expanded extremity of the Lucia glacier, are covered with débris, on the outer margins of which dense vegetation has taken root. All the central portion of the ice-sheet is clear of moraines, and shone in the sunlight like a vast snow-field. The heights formerly reached by the nearer glaciers were plainly marked along the mountain sides by well-defined terraces, sloping with the present drainage. When the Lucia glacier was at its flood the ridge on which I stood was only 200 or 300 feet above its surface; now it approaches 1,000 feet.

Turning toward the southeast, I could look down upon the waters of Yakutat bay, with its thousands of floating icebergs, and could distinguish the white breakers as they rolled in on Ocean cape. Beyond Yakutat stretches a forest-covered plateau between the mountains and the sea, and the eye could range far over the mountains bordering this plateau on the northeast. In the distance, fully a hundred miles away, stood Mount Fairweather, its position rendered conspicuous by a bank of shining clouds floating serenely above its cold summit.

The mountains directly east of Yakutat bay rise to a general height of about 8,000 feet, but are without especially prominent peaks. In a general way they form a rugged plateau, which has been dissected in various channels to depth of 2,000 or 3,000 feet. Nearly all of the plateau, including mountains and valleys, is covered with snow-fields and glaciers; but none of the ice-streams, so far as can be seen from a distance, descend below an elevation of about 4,000 or 5,000 feet. This region is as yet untraversed; and when the explorer enters it, it is quite possible that deep drainage lines will be found through which glaciers may descend nearly or quite to sea-level.

After drinking in the effect of the magnificent landscape and endeavoring to impress every detail in the rugged topography upon my memory, and having finished writing my notes, it was time to return; for the sun was already declining toward the west. Wishing to see more of the wonderful land about me, I concluded to descend the western slope of the ridge upon which I stood, and to return to camp by following a stream which issues from the Atrevida glacier directly below my station and empties into Yakutat bay a mile or two south of our third camp.

The quickest and easiest way down was to slide on the snow. Using my alpenstock as a brake, I descended swiftly several hundred feet without difficulty, the dogs bounding along beside me, when on looking up I was startled to see two huge brown bears on the same snow surface, a little to the left and not more than a hundred and fifty yards away. Had my slide been continued a few seconds more I should have been in exceedingly unwelcome company. I was unarmed, and entirely unprepared for a fight with two of the most savage animals found in this country. The bears had long yellowish-brown hair, and were of the size and character of the "grizzly," with which they are thought by hunters, if not by naturalists, to be specifically identical. They were not at all disturbed by my presence, and in spite of my shouts, which I thought would make them travel off, one of them came leisurely toward me. His strides over the snow revealed a strength and activity commanding admiration despite the decidedly uncomfortable feeling awakened by his proximity and evident curiosity. Later in the season I measured the tracks of an animal of the same species, made while walking over a soft, level surface, and found each impression to measure 9 by 17 inches, and the stride to reach 64 inches. So far as I have been able to learn, this is the largest bear track that has been reported. Realizing my danger, I continued my snow slide, but in a different direction and with accelerated speed. The upper limit of the dense thicket clothing the slope of the mountain was soon reached, and my unwelcome companions were lost to sight.