Our party spent about two hours on the summit. We would gladly have tarried longer, but the clouds were gradually approaching from all points, and we did not care to take the chance of spending a night in the crater. Our descent in some places was even more dangerous than the ascent, owing to the falling rock. I recall with a shudder the successful dodging of a shower of bowlders on their way down from the top of a cliff two thousand feet above. They were singing as merrily as a cannon ball just shot from a thirty-pounder as they passed my head.
Our party left the summit about two o'clock, and some of us reached "Camp of the Clouds" by six o'clock, descending in four hours the same distance that we were twelve hours in covering on the upward climb. The names of the party making this very successful ascent are: John Muir, P. B. Van Trump, A. C. Warner, D. W. Bass, N. O. Booth, C. V. Piper and E. S. Ingraham.
Professor Israel Cook Russell.
XI. EXPLORING THE MOUNTAIN AND ITS GLACIERS, 1896
By PROFESSOR I. C. RUSSELL
The name of Professor Israel Cook Russell is permanently associated with Mount Rainier. He was one of America's noted geologists. He was born near Garrattsville, New York, on December 10, 1852. Graduating from the University of the City of New York in 1872, he at once began his career in science. In 1874, he was a member of the United States party at Queenstown, New Zealand, to observe the transit of Venus. From 1878 to 1892, he wrought valuable work in geology for the United States Geological Survey. This took him to Alaska and various other parts of the country. He succeeded Alexander Winchell as Professor of Geology in the University of Michigan in 1892 and continued to spend his summers in field work. One of his trips was to the West Indies during the eruption of Mount Pelee.
Most of his summer trips were devoted to the mountains and valleys of Oregon and Washington. It was during one of these trips, in the summer of 1896, that he made the explorations of Mount Rainier the extensive record of which, fully illustrated, appeared in the Eighteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey for 1896-1897. The essential portions of that record are here reproduced by permission of Director George Otis Smith of the Survey, who also kindly furnished a portrait of his former colleague.
Professor Russell was honored with the Doctor of Laws degree by his alma mater and by the University of Wisconsin. He died suddenly at the zenith of his power in 1906, leaving a widow, Mrs. J. Augusta (Olmstead) Russell and three daughters. An earnest appreciation of his character and work by G. K. Gilbert was published in The Journal of Geology, Volume XIV, number 8, November-December, 1906. When The Mountaineers Club ascended the mountain in 1909 they named in his honor Russell Cliff, a majestic crest near the summit and overlooking the Winthrop and Emmons glaciers, and later a glacier on the northern slope, near Carbon Glacier, was named Russell Glacier.