ed how he had fared. One feels upon reflection
that we took more risk in descending that ridge than we took at any time
in the ascent. But Karstens was most cautious and careful, and in the
long and intensive apprenticeship of this expedition had become most
expert. I sometimes wondered whether Swiss guides would have much to
teach either him or Walter in snow-craft; their chief instruction would
probably be along the line of taking more chances, wisely. If the writer
had to ascend this mountain again he would intrust himself to Karstens
and Walter rather than to any Swiss guides he has known, for ice and
snow in Alaska are not quite the same as ice and snow in the Alps or the
Canadian Rockies.

[Illustration: Beginning the descent of the ridge; looking down 4,000
feet upon the Muldrow Glacier.]

The loose snow was shovelled away and the steps dug in the hard snow
beneath, and the creepers upon our feet gave good grip in it. Thus,
slowly, step by step, we descended the ridge and in an hour and a half
had reached the cleavage, the most critical place in the whole descent.
With the least possible motion of the feet, setting them exactly in the
shovelled steps, we crept like cats across this slope, thrusting the
points of our axes into the holes that had been made in the ice-wall
above, moving all together, the rope always taut, no one speaking a
word. When once Karstens was anchored on the further ice he stood and
gathered up the rope as first one and then another passed safely to him
and anchored himself beside him, until at last we were all across. Then,
stooping to pass the overhanging ice-cliff that here also disputed the
pack upon one's back, we went down to the long, long stretch of jagged
pinnacles and bergs, and our intricate staircase in the masonry of them.
Shovelling was necessary all the way down, but the steps were there,
needing only to be uncovered. Passing our ridge camp, passing the danger
of the great gable, down the rocks by which we reached the ridge and
down the slopes to the glacier floor we went, reaching our old camp at
9.30 P. M., six and a quarter hours from the Parker Pass, twelve hours
from the eighteen-thousand-foot camp in the Grand Basin, our hearts full
of thankfulness that the terrible ridge was behind us. Until we reached
the glacier floor the weather had been clear; almost immediately
thereafter the old familiar cloud smother began to pour down from above
and we saw the heights no more.