FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>  
Belmore Browne in 1912, which came within an ace of success--had approached the mountain from the interior instead of from the coast, it would have forestalled us and accomplished the first complete ascent. The difficulties of the coast approach have been described graphically enough by Robert Dunn in the summer and by Belmore Browne himself in the winter. There are no trails; the snow lies deep and loose and falls continually, or else the whole country is bog and swamp. There is no game. [Sidenote: Parker and Browne] The Parker-Browne expedition left Seward, on Resurrection Bay, late in January, 1912, and after nearly three months' travel, relaying their stuff forward, they crossed the range under extreme difficulties, being seventeen days above any vegetation, and reached the northern face of the mountain on 25th March. The expedition either missed the pass near the foot of the Muldrow Glacier, well known to the Kantishna miners, by which it is possible to cross from willows to willows in eighteen miles, or else avoided it in the vain hope of finding another. They then went to the Kantishna diggings and procured supplies and topographical information from the miners, and were thus able to follow the course of the Lloyd party of 1910, reaching the Muldrow Glacier by the gap in the glacier wall discovered by McGonogill and named McPhee Pass by him. Mr. Belmore Browne has written a lucid and stirring account of the ascent which his party made. We were fortunate enough to secure a copy of the magazine in which it appeared just before leaving Fairbanks, and he had been good enough to write a letter in response to our inquiries and to enclose a sketch map. Our course was almost precisely the same as that of the Parker-Browne party up to seventeen thousand feet, and the course of that party was precisely the same as that of the Lloyd party up to fifteen thousand feet. There is only one way up the mountain, and Lloyd and his companions discovered it. The earthquake had enormously increased the labor of the ascent; it had not altered the route. A reconnoissance of the Muldrow Glacier to its head and a long spell of bad weather delayed the party so much that it was the 4th June before the actual ascent was begun--a very late date indeed; more than a month later than our date and nearly three months later than the "Pioneer" date. It is rarely that the mountain is clear after the 1st June; almost all the summer through
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>  



Top keywords:

Browne

 

ascent

 

mountain

 
Parker
 
Muldrow
 

Belmore

 

Glacier

 

months

 
discovered
 

expedition


thousand
 

seventeen

 

miners

 

Kantishna

 

precisely

 

willows

 

summer

 

difficulties

 
Pioneer
 

fortunate


secure

 

leaving

 

magazine

 

appeared

 

account

 

McGonogill

 

glacier

 

McPhee

 

stirring

 

Fairbanks


rarely

 

written

 
letter
 

companions

 

earthquake

 

reconnoissance

 

altered

 
enormously
 
increased
 

weather


inquiries

 
enclose
 

sketch

 

response

 
delayed
 
fifteen
 

actual

 

eighteen

 

continually

 

country