I had a fine view of the top
of the mountain-mass which forms the boundary wall of the upper
portion of the inlet on the west side, and of several glaciers,
tributary to the first of the eastern tributaries of the main Muir
Glacier. Five or six of these tributaries were seen, most of them now
melted off from the trunk and independent. The highest peak to the
eastward has an elevation of about five thousand feet or a little
less. I also had glorious views of the Fairweather Range, La Perouse,
Crillon, Lituya, and Fairweather. Mt. Fairweather is the most
beautiful of all the giants that stand guard about Glacier Bay. When
the sun is shining on it from the east or south its magnificent
glaciers and colors are brought out in most telling display. In the
late afternoon its features become less distinct. The atmosphere
seems pale and hazy, though around to the north and northeastward of
Fairweather innumerable white peaks are displayed, the highest
fountain-heads of the Muir Glacier crowded together in bewildering
array, most exciting and inviting to the mountaineer. Altogether I
have had a delightful day, a truly glorious celebration of the fourth.
July 6. I sailed three or four miles down the east coast of the inlet
with the Reid party's cook, who is supposed to be an experienced
camper and prospector, and landed at a stratified moraine-bank. It
was here that I camped in 1880, a point at that time less than half a
mile from the front of the glacier, now one and a half miles. I found
my Indian's old camp made just ten years ago, and Professor Wright's
of five years ago. Their alder-bough beds and fireplace were still
marked and but little decayed. I found thirty-three species of plants
in flower, not counting willows - a showy garden on the shore only a
few feet above high tide, watered by a fine stream. Lutkea,
hedysarum, parnassia, epilobium, bluebell, solidago, habenaria,
strawberry with fruit half grown, arctostaphylos, mertensia,
erigeron, willows, tall grasses and alder are the principal species.
There are many butterflies in this garden. Gulls are breeding near
here. I saw young in the water to-day.
On my way back to camp I discovered a group of monumental stumps in a
washed-out valley of the moraine and went ashore to observe them.
They are in the dry course of a flood-channel about eighty feet above
mean tide and four or five hundred yards back from the shore, where
they have been pounded and battered by boulders rolling against them
and over them, making them look like gigantic shaving-brushes. The
largest is about three feet in diameter and probably three hundred
years old. I mean to return and examine them at leisure. A smaller
stump, still firmly rooted, is standing astride of an old crumbling
trunk, showing that at least two generations of trees flourished here
undisturbed by the advance or retreat of the glacier or by its
draining stream-floods. They are Sitka spruces and the wood is mostly
in a good state of preservation. How these trees were broken off
without being uprooted is dark to me at present. Perhaps most of
their companions were up rooted and carried away.
July 7. Another fine day; scarce a cloud in the sky. The icebergs in
the bay are miraged in the distance to look like the frontal wall of
a great glacier. I am writing letters in anticipation of the next
steamer, the Queen.
She arrived about 2.30 P.M. with two hundred and thirty tourists.
What a show they made with their ribbons and kodaks! All seemed happy
and enthusiastic, though it was curious to see how promptly all of
them ceased gazing when the dinner-bell rang, and how many turned
from the great thundering crystal world of ice to look curiously at
the Indians that came alongside to sell trinkets, and how our little
camp and kitchen arrangements excited so many to loiter and waste
their precious time prying into our poor hut.
July 8. A fine clear day. I went up the glacier to observe stakes and
found that a marked point near the middle of the current had flowed
about a hundred feet in eight days. On the medial moraine one mile
from the front there was no measureable displacement. I found a raven
devouring a tom-cod that was alive on a shallow at the mouth of the
creek. It had probably been wounded by a seal or eagle.
July 10. I have been getting acquainted with the main features of the
glacier and its fountain mountains with reference to an exploration
of its main tributaries and the upper part of its prairie-like trunk,
a trip I have long had in mind. I have been building a sled and must
now get fully ready to start without reference to the weather.
Yesterday evening I saw a large blue berg just as it was detached
sliding down from the front. Two of Professor Reid's party rowed out
to it as it sailed past the camp, estimating it to be two hundred and
forty feet in length and one hundred feet high.
Chapter XVIII
My Sled-Trip on the Muir Glacier
I started off the morning of July 11 on my memorable sled-trip to
obtain general views of the main upper part of the Muir Glacier and
its seven principal tributaries, feeling sure that I would learn
something and at the same time get rid of a severe bronchial cough
that followed an attack of the grippe and had troubled me for three
months. I intended to camp on the glacier every night, and did so,
and my throat grew better every day until it was well, for no lowland
microbe could stand such a trip.
