The Mile Of This Extravagantly Difficult Growth
Through Which I Struggled, Inch By Inch, Will Not Soon Be Forgotten.
At
Length arriving within a few hundred yards of the glacier, full of
panax barbs, I found that both the glacier
And its unfordable stream
were pressing hard against a shelving cliff, dangerously steep,
leaving no margin, and compelling me to scramble along its face
before I could get on to the glacier. But by sunrise all these cliff,
jungle, and torrent troubles were overcome and I gladly found myself
free on the magnificent ice-river.
The curving, out-bulging front of the glacier is about two miles
wide, two hundred feet high, and its surface for a mile or so above
the front is strewn with moraine detritus, giving it a strangely
dirty, dusky look, hence its name, the "Dirt Glacier," this
detritus-laden portion being all that is seen in passing up the
river. A mile or two beyond the moraine-covered part I was surprised
to find alpine plants growing on the ice, fresh and green, some of
them in full flower. These curious glacier gardens, the first I had
seen, were evidently planted by snow avalanches from the high walls.
They were well watered, of course, by the melting surface of the ice
and fairly well nourished by humus still attached to the roots, and
in some places formed beds of considerable thickness. Seedling trees
and bushes also were growing among the flowers. Admiring these novel
floating gardens, I struck out for the middle of the pure white
glacier, where the ice seemed smoother, and then held straight on
for about eight miles, where I reluctantly turned back to meet the
steamer, greatly regretting that I had not brought a week's supply of
hardtack to allow me to explore the glacier to its head, and then
trust to some passing canoe to take me down to Buck Station, from
which I could explore the Big Stickeen Glacier.
Altogether, I saw about fifteen or sixteen miles of the main trunk.
The grade is almost regular, and the walls on either hand are about
from two to three thousand feet high, sculptured like those of
Yosemite Valley. I found no difficulty of an extraordinary kind. Many
a crevasse had to be crossed, but most of them were narrow and easily
jumped, while the few wide ones that lay in my way were crossed on
sliver bridges or avoided by passing around them. The structure of
the glacier was strikingly revealed on its melting surface. It is
made up of thin vertical or inclined sheets or slabs set on edge and
welded together. They represent, I think, the successive snowfalls
from heavy storms on the tributaries. One of the tributaries on the
right side, about three miles above the front, has been entirely
melted off from the trunk and has receded two or three miles, forming
an independent glacier. Across the mouth of this abandoned part of
its channel the main glacier flows, forming a dam which gives rise to
a lake.
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