OCR Text |
Show jf SCENIC P If PLAYGROUNDS U U OF AMERICA 1) jjj By G. M. KILBOLRN 'p Eternal Ice THE amazing variety of the natural nat-ural wonders appearing In western North America is nowhere more strikingly strik-ingly displayed than in our contrasting contrast-ing national resources of perpetual ice and apparently inexhaustible boiling water. Millions of Americans know of Old Faithful geyser, Firehole lake. Roaring Roar-ing Mountain, the Frying Pan, the Minute Man. and other Yellowstone park wonders which contribute tons of boiling water to the Missouri river system every day of the year. In delightful de-lightful contempt of Old Man Weather and his winter rampages. Thousands of 1928 and 1929 visitors to the park also know of the new "Imperial" geyser, a spirited debutante of the summer of 192S, which twice daily spouts to a height of 100 feet or more from two to eight thousand tons of water; this volume, which involves i continuous two-hour eruption, would water a city of perhaps 25,000 people. But very few people have stopped to contrast this national legacy of gur- The Carbon Glacier, gle-hiss-and-steam with an equally Interesting In-teresting phenomenon of perpetual ice masses wliich defy the summer's heat waves just as unconcernedly as the geysers face the prophecy of a long, hard winter. Very few Americans realize that there are acres and acres of perpetual ice within the United States alone, at less . than half the elevation of the famous boiling-water basin far lower than Denver, Reno, the BlacJ bills summits, or the Grand canyon rim, and even lower than many Appalachian uplands of the Atlantic seaboard ! Still more amazing, perhaps, is the fact that the lowest but least-known Ice bank lies within 55 miles by air, or 75 by auto, of a city of half a million mil-lion people, and that only an easy hike of less than two miles is needed to reach the 100-foot cliff of immemorial Ice from the auto road. This lowest American Ice field is the Carbon glacier elevation 3,390 feet on the north side of Mount Rainier, In the state of Washington. Like some of the Immense prehistoric Ice teeth of Glacier National park which ate out deep box-shaped, cliff-wailed valleys val-leys only to melt away completely in their depths, the Carbon glacier (although (al-though in general a part of the octopus-shaped ice pattern which reaches practically to the summit of the peak) has In fact gnawed so deeply into its mountainside bed that a towering precipice wall of Its own making now completely isolates It from the summit glaciers. By contrast, Its southern slope rival, the better known Nis-qually Nis-qually glacier, which finally dies a dirty. Ignominious death at 4,000 feet amid the stares of bus-bundled humanity hu-manity en route to Paradise valley, begins on the summit crater's rim, and loses two full miles of elevation before be-fore Its final boulder-buried and almost al-most shame-faced wilting. There is defiance and grandeur rather than apology, however, in the imposing precipice of Ice with which the dogged old Carbon glacier makes its last bow after fighting Its way GOO feet lower. Mount Rainier (pronounced re-near) is reached by highway from Seattle or Tacoma, Wash., usually b" nie Long-mire-Paradise valley route which also permits rail travel, as far as Ashford. via the Milwaukee road. The Carbon I glacier Is easily accessible In dry weather only, and via Fairfax instead of Ashford; Fairfax is iached by the Northern Pacific railway, but inquiry should he made regarding automobile automo-bile transportation the ojbe, 15 miles. Travelers desiring to go on a glacier I with both safety and Information as well as thrills will find guide parties available by foot at Taradise Valley, Rainier, and by horse and foot in Glacier National park, Montana. ((c). 1930. Western Newspaper Union.) |