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Show - I ki V - t MUX1 ,r'-v: M,V:1 By JOHN DICKINSON SHERMAN LACIER NATIONAL PARK, up next to ttie Canadian line in Montana and , a public playground of the first class, had its most successful season sea-son in 1923 and will doubtless set a new record this year. Glacier will come to Its own in the matter of attendance at-tendance with the completion of its Transmountain Road across the Continental Con-tinental Divide, over Logan Pass, now in the third year of construction by the national na-tional park service. Already the service is planning plan-ning for substantial extensions to present accommodations accom-modations for visitors, which will then be neces-, sary. Says Stephen T. Mather, director of the national park service, in his 1923 annual report to the secretary of the Interior: In common with the majority of the other national na-tional parks, Glacier oxperienced her most successful success-ful season, enjoying Jaore patronage than In any previous year, 33,988 Visitors having registered in k the park as compared H-Uh 23,935 visitors in 1922. This is only a forerunner of a tremendous increase in travel that Is certain to take place on the com- pletion ot the Transmountain Road, now In its third year of construction. Motorists traveling the N northern highways to Glacier never have had a direct route across the Continental Divide, this ' .. barrier requiring a detour of several hundred miles to the south. The Transmountain Road, crossing tie Continental Divide through Logan Pass, will, aside from furnishing a direct means of traversing the mountains, attract thousands of motorists by Its unsurpassed scenic qualities. j This isgood as far as it goes, but the situation may be made plainer by a more detailed explanation explana-tion of Glacier's hard luck In the matter of automobile auto-mobile highways. An attendance of only 33.9S8 for a flrst-class national park like Glacier is a joke and a bad one. But the reasons for this comparatively small attendance are easily found. A few years ago the bulk of the tourist travel to the national parks was by railroad. Now the bulk of it Is by private car. The per cent varies. Contrasting examples: Rocky Mountain, in 1923, had 51,800 private cars in which probably more than 80 per cent of its 218,000 visitors traveled. Glacier had 5,599 private cars; not more than 50 per cent of Its 33.9S8 visitors arrived by private car. This tells part of the story. Rocky Mountain Moun-tain is of no higher class than Glacier and is on y about one quarter as large-400 square miles in the one and 1,539 in the other-but Rocky Moun-tain Moun-tain Is the most easily accessible by automobile from the geographical and population center of the country of all the 19 national parks. Another factor in the attendance comparison between be-tween Rocky Mountain and Glacier is this : : Each park has an independent east and west entrance on either side of the Continental Divide each en-trance en-trance taking care of separate and dist Inct 1 Ines of automobile tourist travel. In Rocky Moun tain the east and west entrances are Estes ?rk nnd Lake, in Glacier they are Glacier I and , ton. In Rocky Mountain the Fall Rher Road crosses the Continental Divide, connect E stes Park and Grand Lake and 'kes po. b e through traffic, which otherwise would b h 1 ss le. Glacier automobile touns travel fu east and west halts at he corn and The Great rQi..Z p ameliorates runs along the south line , o f th . pa o( the situation by maintaining ll" ' Unless motor cars between the two en tran J-motorists J-motorists take vantage of ti Umiuph they have to make a dl, en;lor through Montana as far south ns iu" Canada. , fr Korkv Mmm- What the FaU River Bond ' ''f.Gn.cier. tain the Transmountain Ivonu ,,roLTess Here is what the 1923 reports, of the l . flt tllP WOrk: n of the Transmoun- Work on the second s,," beKn and about tain Road on the west side lhe nrat sec- tx miles, extending from p McDonald Hon at the head of I-ae M"X wm be finished Crek to above Avalanche CreeK, this fall (1923). Also a contract has been let for the construction of eight or nine mlleH, on the east side. Including the construction of a bridge across the St. Mary River, extending from St. Mary Chalet along the north shore of St. Mary Lake toward Go-ing-to-the-Sun Chalet. With construction under way on both sides of the Continental Divide, the Transmountain Road can be pushed with more speed to completion. And here Is a glimpse into the future that promises prom-ises all kinds of things for Glacier: It will be o-nly a short time before the Babb-International Boundary Road is Improved. This road runs through the Blackfeet Indian reservation adjoining adjoin-ing Glacier on the east and will connect with the Canadian National parks highway system. The Natloni'l Park-to-Park Highway, which connects all the western national parks, is in full operation and get' ng better every season. The Banff-Win-dermeri' Highway across the Canadian Rockies, opened last year, makes direct connection with the National Park-to-Park Highway at Spokane, Wash. With the Babb-Internntlonal Boundary Road and the Transmountain Road completed, Glacier will offer of-fer much to automobile tourists. Any car owner In the United States or Canada can easily reach Glacier, Gla-cier, either to stay or go an. The entire Scenic West, American and Canadian, will be open to him. When Glacier comes to Its own, its attendance will jump up amazingly. And what It gains it will keep, for Its visitors have a habit of going back year after year. Glacier has Its devotees, Just as have Rocky Mountain la Colorado and Yosemlte In California. Yellowstone, oldest, biggest and most famous of all our 19 national parks, has been lacking in this to date. Take Mary Roberts Rinehart nature lover, outdoor out-door woman, 'novelist and nature writei- she's an example. She has been much in Glacier. And here is the way Glacier got her. Her enthusiasm induced her to write an "Appreciation of Glacier" for publicity purposes. And here's what she says, In part: There are no "Keep Oft the Grass" signs in Glacier Gla-cier National Park. It is the wildest part of America. Amer-ica. . . . It is perhaps the most unique of all our parks, as it is undoubtedly the most magnificent. magnifi-cent. . . . Here the Rocky Mountains run northwest north-west and southeast, and in the glacier-carved basins ba-sins are great spaces; cool, shadowy depths in which lie blue lakes; mountain-sides threaded with white, where, from some hidden lake or glacier far above, the overflow falls a thousand feet or more, and over all the great silence of the Rockies. Here is the last home of a vanishing race the Blackfeet Indians. Here Is the last stand of the Rocky Mountain sheep and the Rocky Mountain Moun-tain goat; here are elk. deer, black and grizzly boars, and mountain Hons. Here are trails that follow the old game trails along the mountain side; here are meadows of June roses, forget-me-not, larkspur, and Indian paintbrush growing beside be-side glaciers, snowflelds and trails of a beauty to make you gasp. . . . But there is no voice In all the world so insistent to me as the wordless call of these mountains. I shall go back. Those who go once always hope to go back. The lure of the great free spaces Is in their blood. One can Imagine without the slightest difficulty a throng of devotees of other -national parks surrounding sur-rounding Mrs. Rinehart, bawling her out In perfectly per-fectly polite language, of course and asking In unison: "How do you get that way, Mary?" And the babel, sifted out, interpreted and reduced to prosaic utterance, would contain these statements state-ments : There's nothing In Glacier wilder than are nreas In other parks. Glacier isn't "perhaps the most unique," nor Is it "undoubtedly the most magnificent. " Other parks have "glacier-carved basins," lakes, glaciers, falls, wild animals and flowers. Yellowstone beats nil the parks except possibly Mount McKInley for wild animal life. Rocky Mountain probably has more mountalj sheep than Glacier. Mount Rainier Is the champion cham-pion "Wild Flower Tark." The Blackfeet are a liability rather than an asset, Inasmuch ns they slaughter relentlessly the park game that strays into their reservation ; the big game on the east side of the Continental Divide is gradually being wiped out. Glacier's highest mountain, Mount Cleveland, Is only 10,438 feet ; Rocky Mountain has 43 between 10,000 and 14.255 feet. Getting down to the really unique features of the koto GJicrtra National park system, this is what we find: The Yellowstone contains more and greater geysers than all the rest of the world together. Mount Ralnler's single-peak system with 2S living glacierg has no equal. Crater Lake occupies occu-pies the hole left after a large volcano had slipped back Into earth's interior through its own rim; it is the deepest and bluest accessible lake In the world. The Sequoia contains con-tains more than a million mil-lion "Big Trees," 12,-000 12,-000 of which are more than 10 feet in diameter; diam-eter; some are more than 30 feet in diameter diam-eter and are the largest larg-est and oldest living things of earth. Hawaii National Park contains the largest larg-est living volca-no in the world, M a u n a Loa ; and Kllauea, continuously active for a century, with its Lake of Fire, which draws visitors from all the world. Mount McKInley Is scenlcally the world's loftiest mountain, since it rises mora than 20,000 feet above sea level and 17,000 feet above Its surrounding sur-rounding valleys. Mesa Verde contains con-tains the most notable not-able and best preserved pre-served prehistoric cliff dwellings In the United Unit-ed States, If not Id the world. Grand Canyon, earth's largest and noblest example of prosiofl. eorffeouslv carved and colored, Is one of the natural wonders of the world. Curiously enough, Mrs. Rinehart omitted mention of the one feature that, in the opinion of many, does entitle Glacier to a place among the unique national parks its "Lewis Overthrust" and the gorgeous coloration of Its mountains. ZIon National Na-tional Park In Utah, Bryce Canyon in Utah, likely ' to be made the Utah National Park, and Grand Canyon probably surpass Glacier in coloration, but their colors are down in the depths, while Glacier's Gla-cier's are flung up Into the sky. Now, don't be scared by the Lewis Overthrust. Here's briefly what the geologists mean by the term : The rock nearest the center of the earth is called Archean and the geologists know very little lit-tle about it. The next oldest strata are the Algon-klan, Algon-klan, which were laid as an ocean bottom sediment sedi-ment something like 80,000,000 years ago. It la this Algonkian group that are exposed In Glacier; nowhere in the world are they displayed in such area, profusion and variety and In such magnificence magnifi-cence of coloring. These Algonkian rocks lie In four differently-colored strata, all of which the Glacier visitor may see for himself. The lowest Is the Altyn limestone, about 1,600 feet thick. It weathers a pale baft There are whole yellow mountains of this on the eastern edge of Glacier. Next above lies ft stratum of Appekunny argillite, or green shale, about 3,400 feet thick. It weathers every possible shade of dull green. Next above that lie ahput 2,200 feet of Grinnell argillite or red shale. It weathers every possible shade of deep red and purple. pur-ple. On top is about 4,000 feet of Slyeh limestone, gray and running in places to yellow. Horizontally through the middle of this limestone la a broad dark band called the dlorlte Intrusion. Now, when these brilliantly colored strata were thrust up from the bottom of the sea, they were practically level. Then there came a gigantic squeeze. The strata yielded in long Irregular, wave-like folds. Finally they cracked and then broke. One broken edge, the western, was thrust upward and over the other. This western edge was thousands of feet thick. It overlapped the eastern edge ten to fifteen miles. This Is the Lewis (Range) Overthrust. It Is this overthrust that accounts for the Inconceivably tumbled character of the vast rocky masses. There Is a sag where the park lies. A horizontal line drawn straight across Glacier would pass through the bottom of the Altyn limestone on the east and west boundaries and In the middle of the park through the top of the Siyeh limestone. It would cut diagonally through the green and red sLiIes on both sides of the Continental Divide. The uninformed tourist doubtless says to hlXt self, as he heads the flivver west, "Three fine national na-tional parks in a row Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone Yellow-stone and Glacier. All three in the Rockies and on the Continental Divide. Probably all much alike. See one and I've seen them all." That shows the necessity of the campaign of education ed-ucation that the federal government and the National Na-tional Parks association and many out-of-door organizations or-ganizations are waging to get the American pew-pie pew-pie to see their national parks with understanding, understand-ing, as well as emotionally. For Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone and Glnclei are essentially different. Rocky Mountain Is solll granite, a most astonishing aggregation of lofty peaks and beautiful valleys perched on the top of the Continental Divide. Yellowstone Is volcanic, with volcanic activities everywhere in evidence. Glacier Is sedimentary rock, twisted and Jumbled and gorgeously colored. Congress has Just passed an act authorizing the j making of a hudct for road building purposes in the national parks, carrying a total of ?7,."00,00 , over three years. If funds are appropriated, Glacier's Gla-cier's tentative allotment is $1,000,000. This would doubtless hurry the Transmountain Road to completion. com-pletion. Speed the day I |