page_title: Claude Ewing Rusk
section_title: McKinley expedition
hierarchical_section_title: Claude Ewing Rusk / Mountaineering career / McKinley expedition
caption_attribution_description: English: Members of the Mazamas McKinley expedition give a final salute to Mount McKinley as they prepare to leave. McKinley is the highest peak in the background.
context_page_description: Claude Ewing Rusk, also known as C. E. Rusk, was an American mountaineer, lawyer, and author from Washington who pioneered routes up Mount Adams, Mount Baker, and Glacier Peak. He also ascended many other peaks in Washington, Oregon, and California.
context_section_description: In 1910, Rusk led an expedition to Mount McKinley sponsored by The Pacific Monthly, The Oregonian, the New York Herald, and members of the Mazamas club. Rusk initiated the expedition when he wrote to Charles H. Sholes of the Mazamas and asked Sholes to join him in an expedition to the mountain. Sholes was unable to join him, but shouldered the responsibility of organizing the expedition and raising funds for it. Eventually, there were three others who accompanied Rusk on the expedition, A. L. Cool, Joseph Ridley, and Frank H. Rojec. Cool was a good friend of Rusk's from the area around Lake Chelan who was well known as an expert mountaineer and guide. Ridley was a forest ranger on the Mount Baker National Forest who had done much exploring and mapping in the area around Mount Baker. Rojec, the photographer for the expedition, worked for the Kiser Photography Company and was well known for his pictures of Western scenery. Their mission was to establish whether Dr. Frederick Cook had indeed made it to the summit, as well as to reach the summit themselves. From Seattle, they took the United States revenue cutter Tahoma to Cook Inlet. From there, they took the sternwheeler Alice up the Susitna River to the mouth of the Chulitna River and then hired a local to guide them up the Chulitna and then two miles up the Tokositna River where they established a base camp. From there they worked their way to the toe of the Ruth Glacier and then up the Ruth Glacier toward McKinley. It was terribly difficult work because for each mile they advanced, they were required to travel five miles back and forth to get all their equipment up the glacier. They also had underestimated the amount of food they needed for the expedition so Cool returned to the base camp to wait for the return of their guide with more supplies. Rusk, from information given to him by S. P. Beecher, a member of the Cook expedition, and after some exploration up a tributary glacier opposite Mount Church, quickly became convinced that Cook had not actually climbed McKinley, but instead climbed a much shorter peak about 20 miles from McKinley. Rusk named four peaks at the head of this tributary glacier: Mounts Sholes, Mazama, Glisan, and Lee. Sholes, Glisan, and Lee were named after prominent members of the Mazamas club. From there they proceeded up the Ruth Glacier passing through The Great Gorge and into the Ruth Amphitheater. At this point, Rusk no longer had any doubts that Cook had not summited McKinley. As he wrote in his article detailing the expedition, they "realized that it would require perhaps weeks or months in which to explore a route to the summit, we realized how utterly impossible and absurd was the story of this man [Cook], who, carrying a pack, claims to have started from the mouth of the Tokositna on the eighth of September, and to have stood on the highest point of McKinley on the sixteenth of the same month. The man does not live who can perform such a feat!" At this point, their food supplies were too low for them to continue further and they were forced to retreat back down the glacier. There was another expedition led by Professor Herschel Clifford Parker and Belmore Browne attempting to summit McKinley at the same time. They also failed to reach the summit due to similar circumstances and later reinforced Rusk's conclusion by finding the very rock that Cook took his famous picture on. The Mazamas expedition had other problems as well. Sometime while they were on the Ruth Glacier, one of the members attempted to kill Rusk by hitting him with a snowshoe, but could not bring himself to finish the job.
caption: Members of the Mazamas McKinley expedition give a final salute to Mount McKinley as they prepare to leave. McKinley is the highest peak in the background.
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