Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1909-11-10
A SEVERE CLIMB
IS MT M'KINLEY
HARD WORK EVEN GETTING
TO BASE OF THE NOUN
TA.Ns.
THERMOMETER AT SEVENTY Be
LOW IN WINTER-suMmERs
RAINY AND piscouRAcJNe.


which l have made thither to under
take ascents This is as much as, or
more than, any one has attempted In
mountaineering in that country; and
it has made me quite familiar with
most Alpine conditions between the
Wrangel group of the ST. Elias range.
thence notwithstanding Mount Nc
Kinley-to and including the volcanoes
of the Aleutian islands. Yet / must
confess to lacking the technical train
ing with rope and axe necessary for
an Alpine climber, which cannot be
obtained properly outside of Switzer-
land.
My trip to Mt. Wrangel, 14,005 feet
high, in 1900, was hardly more than
a reconnaissance; in 1908, with DR..
f. A. Cook of Brooklyn, we reached
height on the southwest shoulder of
Mt. Mckinley of 10000 feet, as re-
corded by pocket aneroid, "uncor-
rected," and, as far as know, uncom-
pensated for that region, and thus pro
badly inclined to overstate. In 1906,
/ climbed with moderate success on
the Aleutian islands, and last year
reached the summit of Wrangel with
Mr. w. T. Soule. who for II years has
been resident of Copper Centre,
Alaska Since an active crater makes
the crest OF Wrangel, my photographs
of its interior have been fled as
proof with the United States Geolog-
lcal Survey at Washington. This was
a first ascent.
These climbs, with DR.. Cooks sec
ond try at Mckinley, the seven at
tempts made upon Mt. st. Elias before
the duke of the AbruZzi successfully
won its top, and much brilliant high
mountaia work by members of the
geological survey whom modesty has
always kept from ADVERTISEMENT,
make up the sum of all Alpine work
in Alaska undertaken for sport or for
scientific ends.
Accents Unusually Difficult.
To one like myself who is acquaint-
ed by actual observation only with
che higher Rockies of Canada and
the States, and with portions of the
Andes. the difficulties of climbing in
Alaska appear. on the whole, to be ex-
ceptionally severe. The sole condi-
ton in favor of ascents there is that
no peak nearly reaches the height
estimated at 10000 feet-above which
human life supposedly cannot be main
tanned under the physical stress of
scaling. But McKinley's 10000 feet,
the $1,000 feet of st. Elias, the 19, 500
feet of Mt. Logan, and the slightly
lower tops of nearly dozen more
Alaskan mountains, present other d.
lemmas, which / do not believe are
exceeded even upon the highest Him
alayas, whose SUBMITS are at present
generally coniectured to be inacces-
siDie.
The first of these Is plainly the OBJ
stacle of climate; and yet Alaskan
weather conditions at high attitudes
are not as desperate as might be sup
posed in land so far north Alaska
is a sub-arctic country, theoretically !;
the arctic circle is visible from its
higher peaks; and winter tempera-
lures down to the seventies, Fahren-
AClS, III lS6IOAS ouJdGGhJ W AZ 1h1CA
mountains are not uncommon. The
average winter cold is greater in
many sections there than in the ex-
IRENE polar sea, and is surpassed in
the world only by portions of Siberia,
the antarctic continent, and the Green
land ice-cap.
Climbing in winter may not yet
be nationally considered as feasible
in Alaska; however, the utter wind
lessness that usually accompanies low
temperatures distant from salt water,
and the fact that no limit can be put
TO the degree of terrestrial cold which
men sufficiently clothed and nourished
may bear, would not necessarily pre-
clude it. Old residents of Alaska have
often suggested the winter rather than
the summer for climbing, owing to the
stabler weather cen itions, the alb
sence of snow-slide., due to melting,
less crevassing of glaciers, and at
:. least no greater falls of fresh snow.
in the colder than in the warmer
months.
The summer weather of Alaska,
even in the interior, is persistently
moist: the rainfall is not much greater
than here in the east, but the number
of cloudy, drizzIy ds.ys in the valleys,
which mean snowfalls at from 5000
feet upward, and temperatures down
to zero on the upper heights Eve had
8. Fahrenheit, in July at only 10000
feet On Mt. Wrangel), are distress
ingly frequent. These conditions may
persist for weeks at a time during the
short summer; and added to the re-
moteness and difficulty of reaching
the heart Of the main ranges, thus fur
Their limiting the time at hand for
actual climbing, Of themselves alone
may defeat party and annul the eff
forts Of a whole season.
Snow confuses Everything.
understand that such weather
chiefly discouraged Professor Parker
on DR.. Cooks second Mckinley trip,
and it certainly hampered our first
try at the mountain as much as did
the probably unscalahle wall which
actually checked US. The one word,
however, that may be said in favor Of
this constant precipitation, is that It
is generally unaccompanied even on
L. a.