Divide of Paradise and Stevens Glaciers. Once probably separated by a chine of rock, they are now one save for a slight elevation in their bed, which turns them respectively toward Paradise Valley and Stevens Canyon.
Old Moraine of Stevens Glacier. Now comparatively small and harmless, this glacier did heavy work in its prime. Witness, Stevens Canyon (p. [66]) and this huge pile of debris, showing that some time ago the glacier, finding a cliff in its way, cut it down and dumped it here.
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the monarch of the Cascades. No longer the huge conical pimple which a volcano erected on the earth's crust, it bears upon it the history of its own explosion, which scattered its top far over the landscape, and of its losing battle with the sun, which, employing the heaviest of all tools, is steadily destroying it. It has already lost a tenth of its height and a third of its bulk. The ice is cutting deeper and deeper into its sides. Upon three of them, it has excavated great amphitheaters, which it is ceaselessly driving back toward the heart of the peak. As if to compensate for losses in size and shapeliness, the Mountain presents the most important phenomena of glacial action to be seen in the United States.
Climbers preparing for a night at Camp Muir (altitude 10,000 feet), in order to get an early start for the summit. This is on the Cowlitz Cleaver, below Gibraltar. John Muir, the famous mountain climber, selected this spot as a camp in 1888. A stout cabin should be built here to shelter climbers.