Glacier Point

“ From the sea of ice down to the point where the abutting glacier arrested my advance with sledge and dogs, the ice-river or arm of the glacier was quite uniform in its rounding up, presenting the appearance—though in a frozen state—of a mighty rushing torrent. The height of the discharging face of the glacier was 100 feet above the sea.
Without doubt, the best time of the year to travel over glacier mountains is just before the snows have begun to melt. The winter snows are then well impacted on the glacier surface, and all the dangerous cracks and water-ditches are filled up. ”

“ Unless whitened by recent storms the glacier is bare of snow in summer with a rough uneven surface of a dirty blue green color, partly covered with rocky debris, and its volume diminishes downward by thawing until at a definite point the whole is melted and flows away as a river of water instead of ice. The lower end is sometimes called the “tongue” or “snout” or “foot” of the glacier—a bad case of mixed metaphors.
CREVASSE ON GREAT GLACIER
Remembering that ice is a hard and brittle solid, it comes as a surprise to find that it can flow like a plastic body under the pull of gravity ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the shoulder of the Hochstetter Dome down a long valley between the giant snow peaks of the Mount Cook Range on the one hand, and the rocky buttresses of the Malte Brun and Liebig Ranges on the other, swollen at intervals by tributary ice-streams, flowing with imperceptible movement, comes the Great Tasman Glacier—a veritable mer de glace—eighteen miles in length. Some six miles from its terminal face the Ball Glacier descends from the south-eastern shoulder of Aorangi, and pours its huge slabs of broken ice and a rubble of moraine into the parent stream. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ As a matter of fact, permanent bodies of snow and ice, large enough to deserve the name of glaciers, occur on many of our western mountain chains, notably in the Rocky Mountains, where only recently a national reservation—Glacier National Park—was named for its ice fields; in the Sierra Nevada of California, and farther north, in the Cascade Range. It is on the last-named mountain chain that glaciers especially abound, clustering as a rule in groups about the higher summits of the crest. ”

“ From the summit ridge of Haidinger, over ten thousand feet above the sea, we had an Alpine view at once extensive and imposing. We were on the main divide, and we looked northward along its snowy crests and jagged pinnacles of rock to where a long snow arête led up to the dazzling summit of Glacier Peak. Beyond that again, stretching away towards the north-east, was a grand array of peaks and glaciers, several of the mountains rising to altitudes of over 10,000 feet. ”

“ The Olympic area is unique, for here the regional snowline descends to about 6,000 feet lower than anywhere within the boundaries of the Continental United States south of Alaska. Extraordinarily heavy annual snowfall and the high percentage of cloudy weather, which retards the melting of snow, combine to depress the snowline to such a low level.
4 Glaciers of Glacier National Park
Within the boundaries of Glacier National Park there are 50 to 60 glaciers, of which only two have surface areas of nearly one-half square mile, and not more than seven others exceed one-fourth square mile in area. ”

“ These younger layers are Cretaceous shales and sandstones underlying the plains immediately east of the mountains. The mountains themselves have been carved by streams and glaciers from the Belt formations comprising the upper block of older rock, that slice of the crust which has been moved more than 15 miles toward the east. The surface over which it was pushed is the Lewis overthrust. At the time this great break occurred the part of it now exposed in Glacier National Park was deeply buried. ”

“ Higher up is a huge pinnacle with an eye through which the sunlight seemed to stream. These were striking points, but ever new beauties in the view met the wandering eye, and the effect produced on the mind is beyond description. The low altitude of this glacier—about 675 ft. above the sea-level, and the luxuriant vegetation in close proximity to the ice, a vegetation covering the hills on both sides of the glacier for a height of from 800 ft. to 1000 ft.—are the most remarkable features. Further on we get a sketch of a glacier at one of the sources of Cook’s River. ”

“ Despite this magnificence the visitor must soon turn his attention to the tremendous accumulation upon which he stands, for it is no less interesting than the mountains and lakes. Among the many 25 boulders which lie along the path are two prominent limestone blocks each 10 to 15 feet in diameter. The underside of one was grooved and polished as the ice pushed it across the rock surface underlying the glacier. The other, partially embedded in the moraine, has a polished upper surface because the glacier flowed over it for a time. ”

“ It is probable that the Park glaciers are not remnants of the large glaciers present during the Ice Age which terminated approximately 10,000 years ago, because it is known that several thousand years after that time the climate of the Glacier National Park region was somewhat drier and warmer than now. ”

“ As a matter of fact, there are persons who visit Glacier National Park without seeing a single glacier, while others, although they actually see glaciers, leave the park without realizing they have seen them. This is because the highways afford only distant views of the glaciers, which from a distance appear much like mere accumulations of snow. A notable example is Grinnell as seen from the highway along the shore of Sherburne Lake and from the vicinity of the Many Glacier Entrance Station. ”

“ Despite recent rapid shrinkage of glaciers and the disappearance of some, Glacier National Park still is a land of ice, yet when the visitor views its present day glaciers and its sublimely beautiful mountain scenery he should not be unmindful of the powerful forces which, working during many thousands of years, have brought it all about. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Its history is similar to that of the debris cone. After a time the boulder slides off its perch, and then the mound of ice melts away.
Snow which fills crevasses and wells during the winter often melts out from below, leaving thin snowbridges in the early part of the summer. These constitute real hazards to travel on a glacier because the thinner ones are incapable of supporting a person’s weight. This is one very good reason why the inexperienced should never venture onto the surface of a glacier without a guide. ”

“ As the ice moves it continually breaks rock fragments loose. Some of these are ground into powder as they move against each other and against the bedrock under the glacier. Most types of rock, especially the limestones and shales on which the Park glaciers rest, when ground fine enough yield a gray powder. All melt-water streams issuing from glaciers are cloudy or milky from their load of this finely ground “rock flour.”
Water from Grinnell Glacier is so laden with rock flour that the small lake along the edge of the ice into which the water pours is nearly white. ”

“ Mount McKinley, for its enormous snowy mass and stature; Yosemite, for the quality of its valley's beauty; Mount Rainier, for its massive radiating glaciers; Crater Lake, for its color range in pearls and blues; Grand Canyon, for its stupendous painted gulf. But there is no part of America or the Americas, [Pg 253] or of the world, to match it of its kind. In respect to the particular wondrous thing these glaciers of old left behind them when they shrank to shelved trifles, there is no other. At Glacier one sees what he never saw elsewhere and never will see again—except at Glacier. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The glacier, clear and white, without a rock on its broken surface, looked from a little distance like a vast snow-covered meadow. We were about a mile above the lower limit of the snow-fields, where the blue ice of the glacier comes out from beneath the névé. The blue ice was deeply buried, and could only be seen in the deepest crevasses. Across the glacier rose the angular cliffs and tapering spires of the Hitchcock range. Every ravine and gulch in its rugged sides was occupied by glaciers, many of which were so broken and crevassed that they looked like frozen cataracts. ”

“ Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover Greenland, Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska, and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacier in the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growing warmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplating the condition of the glaciers of the world, we must bear in mind while trying to account for the changes going on that the same sunshine that wastes them builds them. ”

“ Hayes a lively description of the Sermiatsialik glacier, which he thinks must at some places be more than seven hundred and fifty feet in depth, overflowing the borders of the valley like a swollen torrent. For upwards of four leagues, the icebergs which throng the fiord, or gulf, are those of the glacier itself, and terminating in a wedge-like outline, disappear in the vast sea of ice expanding to right and left above the loftiest summits, and drawing irresistibly the eye to its rippled surface,—boundless, apparently, like that of ocean. ”

“ In Glacier National Park these rocks, which have a maximum thickness of more than 20,000 feet, are in the form of a large syncline (downfold) , the east and west edges of which form the crests of the Lewis and Livingstone Ranges (Figure 3D) . Throughout the large area of western Montana, northern Idaho, and southern British Columbia where Belt rocks occur, they are important mountain-makers. In addition to the ranges already mentioned they are the principal rocks in many others, including the Mission, Swan, and Flathead in the region south of Glacier Park ”

“ All sides of this mountain, except the south, are so precipitous that they offer not the slightest possible hope to the mountain climber, be he ever so skilful. The summit is crowned by a snow field or glacier of small size but of remarkable purity, since there are no higher cliffs to send down stones and debris to the glacier and destroy its beauty. On the west face, the glacier overhangs a precipice, and, by constantly crowding forward and breaking off, has formed a nearly vertical face of ice, which is in one place three hundred and twenty-five feet thick. ”