Chapter I

The 1906 expedition may be roughly sketched, for, though it was a failure, it at least taught its leaders what routes were not possible. They started with pack-horses and a motor-boat, with the intention of trying the north-western face. They ascended the Yentna River, which enters the Susitna from the west, but found it impossible to cross the southern flanks of the Alaskan range. They then turned up the south side of the range, and reached the glacier out of which the Tokositna River flows. By this time their transport was in a precarious condition, and their horses could go no farther. They were within view of Mount McKinley, and saw not only the impossibility of the southern face, but the extraordinary difficulties of approaching even its base from that direction. They accordingly returned to the coast, where Dr. Cook left them, announcing that he intended to make one final desperate attempt on the mountain.

Presently Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore Browne heard, to their surprise, the rumour that Dr. Cook had succeeded. Knowing that the feat was impossible in so short a time, they disbelieved the tale, and stated their views publicly in New York. Then appeared Dr. Cook's notorious book; but before it was published he had departed for the Arctic regions. Geographical circles in America were torn with the controversy. A committee of the Explorers' Club investigated the question, but Dr. Cook refused to give evidence. Professor Parker and Mr. Belmore Browne were meantime busy with their own plans for another attempt.

The 1910 expedition was again directed to the southern face. Their reasons were that for most of the journey to that face a water route was possible, and that if they failed there they believed they would be able to go on to the southern North-East ridge, which, from what they had heard and seen, they believed to be the most promising avenue of attack. They also wished to duplicate the photographs which Dr. Cook had published, and so prove or disprove his bona fides. Also, the northern side of the great mountain had been already fairly well mapped, but nothing had been done on the south side.

The notion of a pack train was discarded, and all their energies were directed towards designing the right kind of boat in which to ascend the Susitna and its tributary the Chulitna till they reached the glaciers. The party consisted of eight, including a young man from Seattle, Mr. Merl La Voy, who was exceptionally fitted by Providence for the work of a pioneer. The present writer had many dealings with Mr. La Voy during the Great War, and can confidently say that he never met any one more intrepid, audacious, and resourceful.

It was a summer-time expedition, and the party left Susitna station on the 26th May. The ascent of the two rivers was difficult and exciting enough, but they reached without misadventure the foot of the Tokositna tributary, where they established their base camp. This camp was thirty-seven and a half miles from Mount McKinley, and a few miles away was the terminal moraine of a great glacier, which they hoped would give them a roadway to the mountain. Up that glacier they would have to carry all their belongings on their backs. In Mr. Belmore Browne's narrative there is an interesting passage describing the process by which men are hardened to wilderness work.

"The day's work consisted in travelling through brush, soft sand, swamps, and glacier streams for about ten hours. With the exception of one or two men, who put a biscuit in their pockets, we took no food with us. The day's work was in no way difficult, for we carried (during the preliminary reconnaissance) no loads; our condition from the _civilized standpoint_ was splendid; we were well-fed, sun-browned, and fairly hard--and yet we all came into camp _thoroughly tired out_. Two months after our adventures on Mount McKinley's ice flanks we came down through the same stretch of country. The snow, however, had melted, leaving dense thickets through which we had to chop our way; mosquitoes hung in clouds, and four of us ... were carrying packs running from 95 to 120 lbs. From the civilized standpoint _we were not well-fed_ and we did not look well--our eyes and cheeks were sunken and our bodies were worn down to bone and sinew; and yet we came into camp as fresh and happy as children, and after a bite to eat and a smoke we could have gone on cheerfully."

It was no light task carrying an outfit of 1,200 lbs. over the thirty-seven and a half miles of glacier, a distance which by the actual route used was much farther. Most of the weight was in pemmican and alcohol for the stoves. The pemmican consisted of pulverized raw meat, mixed with sugar, raisins, currants, and tallow. Their principal drink was tea. On 11th June they had their last wood fire, and after that there was only the stove. The days were spent in sheer hard navvy labour, trudging along on snow-shoes under heavy packs, and trotting back for others. They had various misadventures. Frequent blizzards of wind and snow compelled them to shut up their tent fast at night, with the result that on one occasion they were nearly asphyxiated.

On 27th June they reached the head of the main glacier, beyond which, through a narrow gorge, a secondary glacier descended from the mountains, Another glacier came down on their right, and here they achieved an interesting piece of detective work. At the top of it they saw some peaks which recalled an illustration in Dr. Cook's book. The illustration purported to be the summit of Mount McKinley, and showed on the left a rock shoulder which Dr. Cook described as a cliff of 8,000 feet. It was really a faked picture of the small peaks at the head of this glacier, miles and miles from the main mountain, and the cliff of 8,000 feet turned out only to rise 300 feet above the floor, and to be only 5,300 feet above sea-level. One legend at any rate had been dispelled for ever.

Now began the patient relaying of provisions up the great gorge. It was desperately hard manual labour, their faces were burnt black by the glare of the sun, and every now and then there would be a slip into a crevasse, which only the highest good fortune saved from being a tragedy. After thirty-six days of hard travelling, they were at last within two miles of the base of the southern cliffs of Mount McKinley. They found themselves in a great ice basin, hemmed in by colossal precipices down which avalanches thundered. Before them rose the mountain, 15,000 feet of rock and ice. Their glasses showed them that the South-West ridge became utterly unclimbable after an altitude of about 15,000 feet. The southern North-East ridge looked more promising, and to this they turned their attention. In that Northern summer there was no dark. "The advance and retreat of the night shadows went on with scarcely a pause, and sometimes we would be uncertain whether the Alpine glow on the big mountain's icy crest was the light of the rising or the setting sun." They had now a short spell of rest from their toil; and as the mind of man on such occasions turns to food, they invented out of their scanty larder a new pudding. Here is the recipe.

"First soak three broken hard-tack in snow-water until they are soft. Add 60 raisins and pemmican the size of 4½ eggs. Stir slowly but energetically until the mess is thoroughly amalgamated. Boil slowly over an alcohol stove, add three tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar, and serve in a granite-ware cup."

But between them and the North-East ridge lay a gigantic _serac_. For a day and a half they lay storm-bound under it, and then, on the morning of 11th July, tried to cut their way up the ice wall. It proved most difficult and dangerous work, and presently, owing to the diminishing provisions, they realized it was impossible. Again and again they attempted it, for only that way was there a road to the North-East ridges. But at last they had to give it up as hopeless, and turn their attention to the South-West _arête_.

This, too, proved too hard for them. They laboured on under constant ice-falls and avalanches, and reached a height of 10,300 feet, where they had perforce to halt. During these days they saw some marvellous mountain scenery. "The whole of the great cliffs of the box-cañon appeared at first glance to be on fire. Unnumbered thousands of tons of soft snow were avalanching from the southern flanks of Mount McKinley on to the glacier floor 5,000 feet below. The snow fell so far that it was broken into heavy clouds that rolled downward like heavy waves. The force of the rolling mass was terrific, and as it struck the blue-green glacier mail it threw a great snow cloud that raced like a live thing for 500 feet; whirling in the wind the avalanche had caused, the white wall swept across the valley, and almost before we were aware of it we were struggling and choking in a blinding and stinging cloud of ice dust."

They began their retreat, and their return to greenery and summer out of a hyperborean hell was like a man's recovery from a dangerous illness. Though the expedition failed, they were a merry party, for though every man was sunken-eyed and lean and hatchet-faced, he was in the pink of condition. It was nothing to them to carry a load of 120 lbs., which would have broken their backs in the first days. The party included men of diverse temperaments and multifarious attainments, and Mr. La Voy observed, "It is an education to travel with a bunch like ours; if anything should happen you can listen to a whole dictionary." In the end they came to their cache on the Chulitna, and they emptied it as children empty their Christmas stockings. "We were actually ravenous," says Mr. Belmore Browne, "and as jars of chow-chow, cans of maple-syrup, and tins of meat appeared we hugged them in our arms and danced delirious dances on the sand! One of the great truths of life that one learns to understand in the North is that it is well worth while to go without the things one wants, for the greater the sacrifice the greater the reward when the wish is consummated. I have eaten with all manner of hungry men, from the sun-browned riders of the sage to the bidarka-men of the Aleutians, and I have feasted joyously on 'seal-liver,' 'seagull-omelets,' and 'caribou spinach'; but never have I seen men eat more, or better food!"