Glacier House

“ We regretted it, however, when we were told that the hotel is nestled among the mountains rising over 5,000 feet above it, all of them snow capped and far down the sides of the deep gorges was still seen the same white vestment. The Glacier House, where we spent the night, is like a Swiss chalet in architecture. To sit upon its piazza and gaze on the lofty mountain peaks is a sublime sight. To watch the sun climbing its sides, rose-tinting the snows which lie like a mantle over their height, is not soon forgotten ”

“ We were at the time clear of the deep snow, and muddling about in a mixture of drifts and moraines; but after dark he was not sure of his way until we struck the path at the foot of the Glacier....
The Glacier House has not only its noble and easily accessible glacier; it is in the very heart of the finest mountain scenery in the Selkirks, which is so different to the scenery of the Rockies. The Canadian Rockies are blunt-topped fisty mountains, with knuckles of bare rock sticking out everywhere. ”

“ One always feels at home in this wild little spot, and scarcely realizes that civilization is so far distant.
The rush of summer guests called for the erection of an annex, so that there are now two hotels for the accommodation of tourists. The Glacier House is located near the railroad, and occupies a small, nearly level, place at the bottom of one of those deep and narrow valleys characteristic of the Selkirks. Those who have visited the Franconia Notch in the White Mountains would be somewhat reminded of that beautiful spot upon first seeing the surroundings of Glacier. ”

“ All eyes are turned toward the glacier. The huge white ridge, gleaming here and there through a cloud of smoke, is pushing down over the mountain-side, a black bulwark of earth rising totteringly before it, and a chaos of bowlders and blocks of ice following, with dull crunching and grinding noises, in its train. The barns and the store-house of the Ormgrass farm are seen slowly climbing the moving earth-wall, then follows the mansion—rising—rising—and with a tremendous, deafening crash the whole huge avalanche sweeps downward into the fjord. ”

“ This is even finer than the Rockies, owing to the greater size of the snowfields and glaciers, and the view from Glacier House, where we stopped for lunch, the grades in the mountains being too steep to allow of a dining-car being attached, was magnificent in the extreme. At this point the great Illecillewaet glacier descends into the valley, backed by the superb spire of Mount Sir Donald, [9] and the C.P.R. have most obligingly built a summer track outside the snow-sheds to enable the passengers to see it in comfort. ”

“ Herdman, never weary, wanted to climb Swiss peak and make a red-letter day of it, but, as this would have meant getting back to Glacier House at midnight, nobody seconded the motion. All that sticks in the memory concerning the return to the cabin was the intolerable glare of the sunlight on the glacier and the wearisome ploughing through the soft, wet snow. We reached the cabin at four p.m., and after a meal, started down the path to the railway and footed the ties five miles to Glacier House, reaching the hotel at seven o'clock.
Hermit is well worth climbing—Mr. ”

“ Under the spell of a certain assurance that a few minutes more of toil would bring us out to the trail, we thought nothing of falling into holes 129 four or five feet deep, as we plunged about among the logs, or, when walking on them, occasionally stepped off into space.
We arrived at the Glacier House at 10:30 P.M., where we were surrounded by anxious friends, and regaled by a hot dinner of roasted chickens and all manner of good things, such as one always finds at this most excellent inn. At such times, more than at any other, one appreciates the thoughtfulness and care of a kind host. ”

“ In the direction of our advance rose a large glacier, and to the east of it lay a mountain range running from southeast to northwest. Toward the west, impenetrable fog lay over the glacier and obscured even our immediate surroundings. A measurement by hypsometer gave 8,200 feet for the point lying at the foot of this, the "Devil's Glacier." We had therefore descended 2,600 feet since leaving the "Slaughter House." This was not an agreeable discovery, as we, no doubt, would have to ascend as much again, if not more. We left provisions here for six days and continued our march. ”

“ The glacier is, therefore, often an object of real terror. The whole region is, in fact, full of startling wonders and novelties of nature. Its history is replete with violent convulsions. Once those were of fire, for the country shows evidence of volcanic heat; now they are of frost. The Land of Desolation is worthy of more consideration than it has ever yet received from the learned and curious, or even the adventurous.
137 CHAPTER III.
THE SOLITARY HOUSE OF PETER MOTZFELDT.
It is time now that I should recur again to the Panther, which we left steaming out of Ericsfiord. ”

“ There are some 6 miles of snow-sheds on about 10 miles of track. East of the summit of the pass the gorge is narrow and the mountains tower a full mile on either side; west of it the valley broadens, but this is the most dangerous part owing to the many avalanches that sweep down the steep west slopes of Sit. Avalanche. A pony trail traverses the pass from Glacier House to Rogers Pass Station, and from the station to near the old tank, where it turns sharply and ascends to Rogers hut. The trail makes a delightful ride or walk, lying partly through beautiful forest and partly in the open. ”

“ Add to the picture of high mountains and snowy glaciers a sapphire bay scattered over with glittering little icebergs, and nature can supply nothing more to stir one's soul, to rouse the fancy and imagination, and enchant the senses. The vastness of this Muir Glacier is enough alone to overpower one with a sense of the might and strength of these forces of nature. Dry figures can give one little idea of the great, desolate stretches of gray ice and snow that slope out of sight behind the jutting mountains, and the tumbled and broken front forced down to and into the sea. ”

“ I have often wondered why no poet had ever chosen one of these same crevasses, with its tinkling stream, and fairy bridges and battlements of pure green ice, bathing in a strange unearthly phosphorescent light, for the home of some glacier Undine. Where could one find a fitter palace for some delicate Ariel than such places as the moulins of the Mer de Glace, the ice-grottoes of the Grindenwald, or the Rhone glacier, or even the commonest crack in the most insignificant sheet of frozen snow. ”

“ To get into one's head what we had to look at on the upper half of the Beardmore, imagine a moderate straight slope: this is the Glacier like a giant road, white except where the sun has melted the snow and bared the blue ice. Looking up the Glacier an overhang of ice-falls and disturbances, with three nunataks or mountains sticking through the ice-sheet like islands—the disturbance is mostly to the left (Eastwards) of these, and the road here looks cruelly steep even where it is not broken up. ”

“ As the former long valley glaciers enlarged their cirques by cutting farther in toward the center of the range, the latter finally was reduced to a very narrow steep-sided ridge, the arete. The imposing height of the Garden Wall can readily be determined by using the layer of diorite as a scale. The conspicuous black band formed by the edge of this layer has an average width of 75 feet. So, from the porch of the Many Glacier Hotel a Park visitor can readily see that the Garden Wall, even though five miles distant, is about 4,200 feet high. ”

“ There is a yellowish haze in the east, white in the west, mild and mellow as a Wisconsin Indian Summer, but finer, more ethereal, God’s holy light making all divine.
In an hour or so I came to the confluence of the first of the seven grand tributaries of the main Muir Glacier and had a glorious view of it as it comes sweeping down in wild cascades from its magnificent, pure white, mountain-girt basin to join the main crystal sea, its many fountain peaks, clustered and crowded, all pouring forth their tribute to swell its grand current. ”

“ One of the most impressive physical features of the whole Territory is the stupendous glacier at Muir Inlet. This ice-field, says a recent writer, enters the sea with a front two or three hundred feet above the water and a mile wide. Fancy a wall of blue ice, splintered into columns, spires and huge crystal masses, with grottoes, crevices and recesses higher than Bunker Hill Monument and a mile in width! It is a spectacle that is strangely beautiful in its variety of form and depth of color, and at the same time awful in its grandeur. And not alone is the sight awe-inspiring. ”

“ After completing my sketch and entering a few notes, I directed the crew to pull around a lofty burnished rock on the west side of the channel, where, as I knew from the trend of the cañon, a large glacier once came in; and what was my delight to discover that the glacier was still there and still pouring its ice into a branch of the fiord. Even the Indians shared my joy and shouted with me. I expected only one first-class glacier here, and found two. They are only about two miles apart. How glorious a mansion that precious pair dwell in! After sunset we made haste to seek a camp-ground. ”

“ It is one of the many fields of ice which stellates from a center fifteen miles back of the Muir front and covers the valley of the mountains between the Pacific and the headwaters of the Yukon river. Nine glaciers now discharge icebergs into the bay. All of these glaciers have receded from one to four miles in the past twenty years. Kate Field says, “In Switzerland a glacier is a vast bed of dirty air-holed ice that has fastened itself like a cold porous plaster to the Alps. In Alaska a glacier is a wonderful torrent that seems to have been frozen when about to plunge into the sea.” ”

“ The dark mountains rising purple to the snow, peak beyond peak of the Southern Alps soaring white against that wondrous blue—so close they seem, so attainable—it is hard to realize they are 10,000 feet above us. And between two mountain walls, filling a mighty gorge, winds down the Franz Josef glacier; an icy chaos of pinnacles and seracs, green-blue and glittering white against the purple-black crags of the gorge. But strangest of all is where the glacier and the forest meet, and the splendid scarlet of the ratas seems almost to touch the ice and snow. ”

“ A short distance above the rude bridge rose the frowning front of a glacier. Although its ice was mud-stained and honeycombed by countless rivulets that ponied from its upper surface in tiny cascades, it still formed an inspiring spectacle, and one that filled Bonny with wondering admiration, for it was his first glacier.
From an arched ice cavern at its base poured the milk-white river, with a hollow roaring, and such force that fair-sized [Pg 727] bowlders were swept down its channel as though they were so many sticks of wood. ”

“ From these ice caverns, from under the glacier, torrents of water are always pouring forth. It is the echo from the mountains, that makes such a little volume of water cause such a roaring, rushing sound. Looking down in proud cold sadness on the glacier, is the blue-grey peak of Sir Donald. It is such a cold, unsympathetic peak, rearing its barren head so proudly above its compatriots. Facing homewards, there is that other snow-capped range, with Ross peak and an immense glacier on its shoulder. They are fields of ice and snow untrodden by the foot of man, and covered with eternal snows. ”

“ Mountain etiquette demands that they not be left in a disorderly state, that no more fuel be consumed than is absolutely necessary, and that their privileges and advantages not be abused.
Shelter is not available in some of the most beautiful sections of the park. To those who are sufficiently sturdy to pack blankets, cooking utensils, and provisions, and are sufficiently versed in woodcraft to take care of themselves overnight, Glacier presents wonderful opportunities. ”

“ As the tide fell, large pieces fell from this front, and avalanches of ice-fragments crashed down into the sea and raised waves that rocked our ship and set the ice-floes grinding together. On the other point of the crescent of this bay there lay the largest glacier, an ice-field that swept down from two mountain gorges, and, spreading out in fan shape, descended in a long slope to a moraine of sand, pebbles, and boulders. Across its rolling front this glacier measured at least three miles, and the low, level moraine was one mile in width. ”

“ Within the memory of the last three generations the Muir glacier filled the bay for miles below our anchorage; and while it recedes, it is creeping slowly down, scalping the mountains, grinding all the sharp edges into powder or leaving a polished surface behind it. It gathers rock dust and the wreck of every living thing, and mixes them up with snow and ice. These congeal again, or are compressed into soft, filthy monumental masses, waiting their turn to topple into the waves at last. The wash of the sea undermines the glacier ”

“ The colossal Muir Glacier, the remains of a world the history of which is lost in the dim twilight none can now penetrate, is dying slowly through a million years. From the mountains, eternally snow-covered, where its huge body, three hundred and fifty miles in extent, has rested through the centuries, it creeps forward slowly towards the sea to meet its doom. Formerly its lip touched the open ocean where now the Taku inlet commences to run inland. ”

“ Few, however, will be likely to enjoy them. Fortunately to most travelers the thundering ice-wall, while comfortably accessible, is also the most strikingly interesting portion of the glacier.
The mountains about the great glacier were also seen from this standpoint in exceedingly grand and telling views, ranged and grouped in glorious array. Along the valleys of the main tributaries to the northwestward I saw far into their shadowy depths, one noble peak in its snowy robes appearing beyond another in fine perspective. ”