Next day I planned an excursion to the so-called Dirt Glacier, the
most interesting to Indians and steamer men of all the Stickeen
glaciers from its mysterious floods. I left the steamer Gertrude for
the glacier delta an hour or two before sunset. The captain kindly
loaned me his canoe and two of his Indian deck hands, who seemed much
puzzled to know what the rare service required of them might mean,
and on leaving bade a merry adieu to their companions. We camped on
the west side of the river opposite the front of the glacier, in a
spacious valley surrounded by snowy mountains. Thirteen small
glaciers were in sight and four waterfalls. It was a fine, serene
evening, and the highest peaks were wearing turbans of flossy,
gossamer cloud-stuff. I had my supper before leaving the steamer, so
I had only to make a campfire, spread my blanket, and lie down. The
Indians had their own bedding and lay beside their own fire.
The Dirt Glacier is noted among the river men as being subject to
violent flood outbursts once or twice a year, usually in the late
summer. The delta of this glacier stream is three or four miles wide
where it fronts the river, and the many rough channels with which it
is guttered and the uprooted trees and huge boulders that roughen its
surface manifest the power of the floods that swept them to their
places; but under ordinary conditions the glacier discharges its
drainage water into the river through only four or five of the
delta-channels.
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