Mount Rainier, a Record of Exploration

by Unknown

We were much disappointed not to have had more time to explore the summit of the mountain. We had, however, demonstrated the feasibility of making the ascent. Had we started at dawn of day we should have had plenty of time for the journey. From what I saw I should say the mountain top was a ridge perhaps two miles in length and nearly half a mile in width, with an angle about half-way, and depressions between the angle and each end of the ridge which give to the summit the appearance of three small peaks as seen from the east or west. When viewed from north or south, a rounded summit is all that can be seen; while viewed from positions between the cardinal points of the compass, the mountain generally has the appearance of two peaks.

The night was very cold and clear after our return. We had some idea of making another ascent; but an investigation into the state of our provisions, together with the condition of the party generally, determined us to begin our return on the morning of the eighth day. The two soldiers had eaten all their bread but one cracker each. The doctor and I had enough left, so that by a redistribution we had four crackers each, with which to return over a space that had required seven days of travel coming. We, of course, expected to be a shorter time getting back; but let it be ever so short, our prospect for something to eat was proportionately much more limited. We had more meat than bread, thanks to the deer the Indian had killed, and we depended greatly on his killing more game for us going back: but this dependence, too, was cut off; the Indian was snow-blind, and needed our help to guide him. His groans disturbed us during the night, and what was our astonishment in the morning to find his eyelids closed with inflammation, and so swollen that he looked as if he had been in a free fight and got the worst of it. He could not have told a deer from a stump the length of his little old rifle.

Our camp was about 1,000 or 1,500 feet below the last visible shrub; water boiled at 199°, and, according to an approximate scale we had with us, this indicated an elevation of 7,000 feet. We estimated the highest peak to be over 12,000 feet high. I greatly regretted not being able to get the boiling-point on the top, but it was impossible to have had a fire in such a wind as prevailed round the summit.

As we returned we had more leisure to examine and clearer weather to see the glacier than we had coming up. There was no medial moraine; but an icy ridge parallel to the lateral moraines, and about midway between them, extending as far as we ascended the glacier. The lateral moraines were not continuous, but were interrupted by the walls of the spurs where they projected into the glacier; between these points the lateral moraines existed. The glacier sloped away from the ridge to the moraines, more or less sharply, and it was no easy matter to get off the ice, owing to the steepness of the moraine. The ice melted by reflection from the face of the moraine, and formed a difficult crevasse between it and the glacier. Bowlders of every shape and size were scattered over the face of the glacier. Large ones were propped up on pinnacles of ice; these were evidently too thick for the sun to heat through. The small bowlders were sunk more or less deeply, and surrounded by water in the hot sun; but they evidently froze fast again at night.

The noise produced by the glacier was startling and strange. One might suppose the mountain was breaking loose, particularly at night. Although, so far as stillness was concerned, there was no difference between day and night, at night the noise seemed more terrible. It was a fearful crashing and grinding that was going on, where the granite was powdered that whitened the river below, and where the bowlders were polished and partially rounded.

The great stillness and solitude were also very oppressive; no familiar sounds; nothing except the whistle of the animal before mentioned and the noise of the glacier's motion was to be heard, and if these had not occurred at intervals the solitude would have been still more oppressive. We were glad to get down again to the Nesqually, where we could hear its roar and see its rushing waters. The other members of the party were so tired and worn, however, that they seemed to observe but little, and as we were now on our homeward way, their thoughts were set only on our camp on the Mishawl, with its provisions and promise of rest.

The first day we passed two of the camps we had made coming up, and reached a point where we remembered to have seen a great quantity of blackberries. It was quite dark by the time we reached the little spot of dead timber—which seems to be the favorite haunt of the creeping bramble in this country—and to gather our supper of berries we built a fire at the foot of a large dead tree. Speedily the flames were climbing to the top of the withered branches, and casting a cheerful light for a hundred yards round. But what we found very convenient for gathering berries proved to be a great annoyance when we wanted to sleep. During the night we were constantly moving our place of rest, at first on account of the falling embers, and finally for fear of the tree itself.

Blackberries are refreshing so far as the palate is concerned; but they are not very nourishing. We took our breakfast on them, and continued down the Nesqually from six in the morning until six in the evening, traveling slowly because of the difficult undergrowth and our worn-out and exhausted condition. We passed another of our camps, and finally stopped at what evidently had been an Indian camp. The cedar bark, always to be found in such places, we anticipated would make a shelter for us in case of rain, which the clouds promised us.

No rain fell, however, and we resumed our march, continuing down the river five or six miles farther than where we first struck it, to a point where the hills came close up and overhung the water. There we camped, expecting that an easy march on the morrow would enable us to reach our camp on the Mishawl. We ate our last morsel, and the next morning I was awakened by the conversation of the two soldiers. They were evidently discussing the subject of hunger, for the Irishman said: "I've often seen the squaws coming about the cook-house picking the pitaties out of the slop-barrel, an' I thought it was awful; but I giss I'd do it mesilf this mornin'."

The morning of the eleventh day we left the Nesqually to cross over to the Mishawl, and traveled on the mountain all day, until we reached the stream at night completely exhausted. We should have stopped sooner than we did, but we were almost perishing with thirst, not having had any water since we left the Nesqually in the morning. What we took along in our canteens was exhausted in the early part of the day. We were not more than two miles from the camp in the prairie, and notwithstanding that we had had nothing to eat all day, except a few berries we had picked by the way, we were so exhausted that we lay down to sleep as soon as we had quenched our thirst.