Mount Saint Elias

Dr. Dahl, in his work on Alaska, has presented a very interesting and instructive chronological tabulation of the activities of the volcanoes of Alaska, from which it would appear that there has been great diminution of energy with the passage of time, the systematic exploration and study of these volcanoes, as well as the associated volcanic areas, are well worth the attention of geographic societies in America, or those who can command leisure and a little money.

But perhaps we shall have to wait, as in the case of Mount St. Elias, for another Prince Luigi to come and tell us the facts concerning Shishaldin and Akutan.

End of Section 1

Section 2 of the National Geographic Magazine, Volume 10, August 1899.

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For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. American mountain regions that equal any in Europe or Asia, the climbing of Mount St. Elias, and the splendid new alpine playground of the Canadian Rockies.

many people even those who are well informed will be surprised to learn that america has its genuine switzerland and that for more than a decade it has witnessed alpine climbing of a sort that the alps have ceased to furnish that of virgin peaks of the first order perhaps no better credential can be presented than that of a german explorer a man who is familiar with the highest andes and lofty mountains in other lands in eighteen ninety eight he wrote this season i have spent in switzerland and have climbed mount blanc and the matterhorn while on their summits i said to myself how tame all this seems compared with what i looked upon last in the canadian rockies the party engaged in climbing here in eighteen ninety seven contained men who know not merely switzerland and tyrol but norway the caucasus and even the himalayas and all were enthusiastic over these new alps not only so but the most expert climber of the number professor j n cawley of the alpine club of london mummery's companion on the fatal trip to climb the mighty nangaparbat in cashmere has since twice returned with other alpine club men to enjoy this magnificent virgin field so we have a perfect right to speak of alpine climbing in north america modern mountaineering dates not so clearly from de saussure's ascent of mont blanc in seventeen eighty six as from the founding of the alpine club in london in the times were ripe for this new departure this recognition of the noblest form of sport in which energetic men indulge similar organizations sprang up elsewhere until nearly every civilized land had its society of mountain lovers american mountain playgrounds it was as early as eighteen sixty three that the idea first struck root in america in the formation of a little coterie in williamstown massachusetts led by a brother of the famous president of williams college mark hopkins its field was anything but alpine the sylvan slopes of graylock with the white mountains for wider ranging and its lease of life was brief only three seasons a similar fortune attended two other local societies the white mountain club of portland maine founded in eighteen seventy three and the rocky mountain club of colorado springs organized a year later both of these were practically defunct in eighteen seventy six when the appalachian mountain club was formed at boston under the happiest auspices never during the quarter of a century that has elapsed since its organization has it known even a momentary decline its thirty-nine original members have increased to more than a thousand and it is still growing meantime the rocky mountain club has been revived in colorado and two vigorous societies of the same sort have sprung up on the pacific coast the sierra club at san francisco and the mazamas at portland oregon yet it would be a mistake to suppose that mountain climbing as generally practiced by these organizations would properly come under the heading of alpine climbing nowhere south of the forty-ninth parallel which is the northern boundary of the united states west of the great lakes can a field be found for genuine alpinism in so far as it is conditioned upon the presence of ice and snow as a dominant feature altitude is a secondary consideration popocatapetl and orazaba with their seventeen thousand and eighteen thousand feet scarcely more than repeat upon a larger scale the early season characteristics of mount washington such peaks require no strategy to overcome them good legs and good lungs are the prime requisites even the grand snow-crowned summits of mount hood and mount rainier the fine field of the mazamas though they approach more nearly to the standard since rope and ice-axe here come into play can hardly be classed among the truly alpine peaks they are safely ascended by large parties whereas in real alpine climbing the number on the same rope can seldom exceed four with safety but north of the 49th parallel in canada and in alaska there exist conditions which provide ideal climbing of the alpine type hardly has one gone a hundred miles beyond the international boundary before the heaven-storming character of the mountain architecture united with the great increase in the amount of perpetual ice and snow utterly revolutionizes the mountaineering here we find thick horizontal strata of limestone and quartzites weathered into vertical escarpments and weirdly shaped crags often producing perpendicular cliffs thousands of feet high surmounted perhaps by a glacier the blue ice of which carries the sheer face two or three hundred feet higher these peaks are frequently no more accessible on one side than on another in which respect they differ from those in the states within twenty-five miles of the canadian pacific railway there are at least a dozen peaks awaiting their victors in a tolerably well justified sense of security such are several of the ten peaks extending southerly from mount lefroy such in particular is mount assiniboine farther south a problem apparently more difficult of solution than was the matterhorn before edward whimper discovered its open secret in eighteen sixty five west of the rockies and within the belt traversed by the railway rise the selkirks less in altitude and less weird in their forms but girt with vaster glaciers than the rockies a type nearer to the swiss alps in alaska lies a still grander alpine field near the sea a magnificent spectacle to tourists rise the superb untried ice castles of mount krillin mount fairweather and mount leprouse farther north stand st elias and even loftier mount logan the latter nineteen thousand feet in altitude to say nothing of their hardly less stupendous companion peaks these are the kings among american alps and none of them but st elias has been climbed the climbing of mount st elias the new and boldest type of american mountaineering is of very recent origin it began almost simultaneously in the two regions just cited the remoter one was the scene of the earliest attempts the nearer of the first successes mount st elias rising near the arctic circle two thousand feet higher than mont blanc began as early as eighteen seventy seven to invite ambitious spirits though no serious attack was made upon it until eighteen eighty six the initial attempt schwatka's failed at seventy two hundred feet in eighteen eighty eight a party of english alpine club men accompanied by one american fared better reaching eleven thousand four hundred feet the years eighteen ninety and eighteen ninety one witnessed one of the most audacious feats of mountaineering ever executed by an american the plucky assaults on this ice-girt hermit peak by professor i c russell of ann arbor in eighteen ninety seven when st elias was finally conquered by the duke of the abruzzi heart of lion in the breast of a gentle youth after an attack magnificently conducted yet with the employment of unlimited resources our press sneered at american mountaineers for allowing such a triumph to be won on american soil by foreigners the italians who attributed their success in no small degree to russell's initiative were more appreciative of what this scientist untrained in the school of the high alps had overcome in reaching the altitude of fourteen thousand five hundred feet a point considerably higher than the camp from which on their thirty-eighth day from the sea they finally reached the summit impressed by their predecessor's tenacious and often rash courage they name the site of that highest camp russell cole what other mountain climber can look back to six days of solitary confinement in a cave dug in a snow-bank at eight thousand feet an experience that russell endured in the first of his two attempts nor was it any lack of courage and endurance that thwarted h g bryant's spirited attempt to win the laurels of st elias for americans even while prince luigi was on the way the canadian switzerland it was in those same years that the completion of the canadian pacific was opening a new field convenient as a luring for alpinism as a sport men of science the members of the geological survey of canada and of the dominion topographical survey had in the prosecution of their work climbed many fine peaks yet none of the very first order in this honorable company mention should be made of j j macarthur of the topographical survey especially noteworthy was his audacious occupation of mount stephen as a station the highest point at which the british flag has floated officially upon this continent Among mere lovers of the sport, alpinists from overseas were first upon the scene.

the rev w s greene and the rev h swanzey of the alpine club in eighteen eighty eight and in eighteen ninety two members of the swiss alpine club e huber and c seltzer and two other englishmen topham and forster in several weeks passed at glacier house greene succeeded in scaling only one first-class peak mount bonny ten thousand six hundred feet but did great service by publishing his interesting book among the selkirk glaciers in this locality eighteen ninety was a banner year the swiss visitors capturing mount sir donald which has been dubbed the american matterhorn though there are better ones and the swiss peak in the hermit range while huber and the two englishmen scaled three fine snow peaks in the remoter region to the south of glacier house as yet no equally difficult peak in the main chain of the rockies had been vanquished of my own seven journeys to the canadian switzerland the first was made in this year eighteen ninety unfortunately for me just after the departure of my friends huber and a mere traversing of the region was enough to whet my appetite for another visit this did not take place until eighteen ninety four from which time dates that peculiar infatuation which a superb mountain region comes to exercise over a lover of nature's sublimities in the intervening years however no important successes had been scored either in the rockies or the selkirks other americans had been there but none bent upon serious business until eighteen ninety three when messrs wilcox and allen two young yale men both of whom have since done fine work here in the way of exploration appeared with rope and ice-axe that year they boldly attacked mount temple eleven thousand five hundred thirty five feet the most formidable giant seen by tourists in all the transcontinental trip failing they returned with other friends in eighteen ninety four and their second trial was successful scrambles in the canadian alps i happened to be at the chalet beside the exquisite lake louise when the yale party came in from mount temple flushed with victory my only exploit that season had been the first ascent of a little peak in the selkirks later named mount afton and the easy winning of an undesirable distinction my companion and i surprised by nightfall well up towards the summit on the southeastern arete of eagle peak an untried route passed the night on a shelf of rock some six feet wide and about three thousand feet nearer the stars than the hotel where we had slept the night before under double blankets as we lay wedged in a convenient crevice a sheer wall of rock rose vertically from our caps and our chief apprehension was lest the mountain should let something drop our way especially as we heard rocks and ice crashing down from sir donald whose weird obelisk rose in the full moonlight half a mile away across the white from our hobnails the cliff fell away vertically several hundred feet to that pale shroud of snow but the sunrise fancy it rose and gold flushing and gilding the score of glaciers gleaming in the vistas open from our lofty watch-tower a terrible experience one writer has characterized it we did not find it so but had it been that unparalleled spectacle would have made amends for all the discomforts of the night watches as it helped to mitigate our trepidation during the next six hours which were spent in trying to make our way out of a peculiar trap in which we found ourselves but we did extricate ourselves without the aid of any rescue party and now having met the yale men we were enjoying our first bewildering sight of grim lefroy and beautiful victoria closing the vista beyond the pale blue lake the enthusiasm of the victors of mount temple was contagious among the experiences they related was the story of a serious accident to one of their party from a sliding rock while attempting to ascend lefroy by the couloir or snow-filled gully seen from the chalet breaching the lower precipices that rise some eight hundred feet above the glacier low walls in comparison with the tremendous cliff forming mountain's eastern face little could i then foresee that it was reserved for me to be of the parties that were first to set foot on both lefroy and victoria but that in the meantime a repulse awaited us in the same couloir and that a more terrible disaster the only fatality that has saddened canadian mountaineering was to overtake our party the party here referred to was made up of members of the appalachian club a little committee from a company of twenty spending some weeks in the canadian alps in eighteen ninety five two of us had made previous visits philip abbott now making his first acquaintance with the region knew switzerland well and was easily our best expert in alpine craft our first expedition was an impromptu affair yet it resulted in the conquest of a first-class peak tom wilson the outfitter at banff has sung the praises of mount hector the defiant craggy peak that guards the valley of the upper bow he told of the fruitless efforts of the survey party to reach its summit he dilated upon the vast glacier unvisited by man which caps the continental divide for a score of miles and which one could reconnoitre from that coin of vantage the proper starting-point for the ascent lay two days journey away for horses considering how badly the trail was impeded by burnt and fallen timber just now he could not furnish us with ponies but we had taken the bait and ponies or no ponies we would tackle mount hector the next morning with one porter to help carry our limited outfit we set out and that night we bivouacked a prey to clouds of mosquitoes at the base of the peak from whose cliff one hears through the darkness the constant crash of falling fragments long before sunrise we were on our way making for the single breach in this western escarpment by which a passage can be forced by nine o'clock we had surmounted it and with that act had witnessed a notable coup de the final peak of hector springs like the corner tower of some huge castle a full thousand feet higher from where the southern and western faces of the vast massif meet more than ten thousand feet above the sea thus far we had moved over rock and scree unroped for the way had offered little or no danger and almost no snow had been encountered in an instant all was changed and we were gazing upon an arctic landscape the vast embrace of those two walls was filled with an expanse of snow of dazzling brilliancy under an unclouded sky lying at first in a gentle almost unbroken slope it suddenly shot up to the summit of that great corner tower interrupted part way up by an obstructing crevasse near the very top where the snow gave way to steep rock was a yet worse spot roping up we secured our first valuable practice in team work in which ladder climbs together made us more expert we safely negotiated our first round moving one at a time the others meantime safely anchored we passed the critical point above from which a body would have shot out into space and a soul into eternity and half an hour after midday we had secured our first virgin peak eleven thousand two hundred feet the second in height of all the canadian alps up to that time ascended our attack on lefroy by the couloir a few days later failed then came an ascent of mount stephen and minor successes in the selkirks where we found mount castor well worth the while owing to bad weather we failed on mount rogers the highest of the hermit range which however was taken the following year by a party of three under abbot's lead the first fatal accident rogers was the only canadian peak vanquished in we had come out a party of four to retrieve our failure on lefroy and to win if possible mount balfour which we had seen from hector rising from that yet unvisited wapotec snow-field rogers was taken rather as a training trip a few days later we were again at the base of lefroy confident of ultimate success yet doubtful if the austere mountain would succumb to our first attempt to be made not by the couloir but by way of the pass on its western side a bolder enterprise the story of that disastrous day of the death of abbot from a fall sustained when the summit was apparently within our grasp of how the rest of the party left without a rope and depended only upon our ice axes faced death at every step during those three evening hours making our slow way by the steps we had cut in the ice of the steep slope or clinging to yet more treacherous rock faces until at length in the dusk we recovered our ropes from the body of our leader which had lain in plain sight all the way of how we passed the cold and snowy hours of the night unsheltered in abbot pass ten thousand feet above the sea all this has been told elsewhere in its painful detail the year eighteen ninety six marked perhaps the close of the first chapter of american alpinism it certainly emphasized the risks of guideless climbing a form of the sport against which much has been urged by those otherwise well disposed towards the recreation and the following season witnessed the first coming of the professional swiss guide peter sarbach who had been abbot's guide in his swiss ascents was brought over by the alpine club men who came to join the american group that had met to execute abbot's plan of ascent the conquest of mount lefroy by starlight on the morning of august three the anniversary of our terrible discomfiture we rode across the silent lake to begin our day of victory the most experienced men of the party declared lafroy a dangerous mountain as difficult as the eiger which towers so grandly above grindelwald a party of nine on three ropes rendered the risk greater from abbot pass the side sweeps up at an average angle of about forty degrees for fifteen hundred feet in one place the slope approaches sixty degrees nearly all this distance is ice the rest of it is worse a friable rock fragments of which are readily dislodged sometimes they start of their own accord the ice we found mantled a foot deep with the remnant of the past winter's snow firmly welded to its surface which afforded a tolerably secure though tedious method of ascent our leader kicked footholds in the hard snow at easy stepping distance apart into each of these in turn lifted his feet at the same time bearing part of his weight on his ice-axe it was very much like climbing a tremendously long ladder and the resemblance was intensified on a return when we utilized the same steps with our faces still towards the slope professor dixon who had often climbed with peter in the alps had never seen him back down before the one critical place in this memorable ascent lay directly opposite to the scene of the accident and in full view of it for we were passing the same outcrop of limestone the vertical wall of which had then obstructed our way a traverse became necessary a horizontal movement to avoid an obstacle that lay in front of us for this manoeuvre nature had provided an obvious but none too alluring opportunity the face of the cliff overhung so as to form a very good roof the deficiency was in the matter of a floor doubtless there was a narrow shelf of rock under the overhang but if so it was concealed by a cornice of snow clinging so closely under the rock overhead as to permit a passage only by crouching below the glittering slope swept steeply down a thousand feet to the upper edge of the cliffs another thousand feet high bidding dixon and myself to anchor firmly peter crept like a cat over the shelf of snow and anchoring himself on its farther side bade the next man follow and so in turn passed all nine half an hour later at eleven o'clock we were seated in triumph on the narrow snow crest of concord lefroy enjoying its stupendous prospect our stay was brief for the intense august sun was busily melting the ladder of snow that had helped us up indeed had our ascent been delayed for a single day it would have been far more arduous two days later when four of us made the delightful ascent of the yet higher victoria we observed that lefroy's snowy veneer had quite disappeared leaving a grey honeycombed surface of ice in which it would have been necessary to cut every step of the way a formidable task if not an impossible one some other notable ascents after making these two notable ascents we turned our steps towards the wapitek snow-field and were the first to stand upon its lofty plateaus hobble had approached it a few days before from its western side and had discovered the great waterfalls comparable in height with those of the yosemite but far exceeding them in volume hidden in the recesses of the valley of the north fork of the wapta firing at the goose we hit the gander that is aiming to ascend mount balfour we found ourselves on a lesser peak of the divide which we named mount gordon balfour was ascended the following year by an appalachian club party led by c s thompson our temporary anglo-american alliance dissolved cawley baker and sarbach made a noteworthy expedition far to the north to investigate some magnificent peaks sighted from mount gordon the late season with its snows prevented any very high ascents but the new viewpoints they secured revealed such wonderful alpine giants on the horizon that dr cawley did not resist the temptation to return in eighteen ninety eight with other alpine club men Making their way to the region of these peaks, they climbed Athabasca Peak, 11,900 feet, and Diadem Peak, 11,500 feet, naming and reconnoitering Mount Columbia, estimated at 14,000 feet, and Mounts Bryce and Alberta, each from 13,000 to 14,000.