The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to AlaskaBallou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
History
The New Eldorado: A Summer Journey to Alaska
Ballou, Maturin M. (Maturin Murray)
Alaska -- Description and travel; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
From the deck of the steamer, as we sail northward, the
irregular-formed, but well-wooded shore is seen to be dotted with
hamlets, sawmills, farms, and hop-fields, all forming a pleasing
foreground to the remarkable scenery of land and water presided over by
the snow-crowned peak of Mount Tacoma, which looms fourteen thousand
feet and more skyward in its grandeur and loneliness. How awful must be
the stillness which pervades those heights! As we view it, the snow-line
commences at about six thousand feet from the base, above which there
are eight thousand feet more, ice-topped and glacier-bound, where the
snow and ice rest in endless sleep. There are embraced within the
capacious bosom of Tacoma fifteen glaciers, three of which, by liberal
road-making and engineering, have been rendered accessible to visitors,
and a few persistent mountain climbers come hither every year to witness
glacial scenery finer than can be found in Europe. Persons who have
traveled in Japan will be struck by the strong resemblance of this
Alpine Titan to the famous volcano of Fujiyama, whose snow-wreathed cone
is seen by the stranger as he enters the harbor of Yokohama, though it
is eighty miles away.
As we steam northward other peaks come into view, one after another,
until the whole Cascade Range is visible, half a hundred and more in
number.
The summit of Tacoma is not absolutely inaccessible. A dozen daring and
hardy climbers have accomplished the ascent first and last; but it
involves a degree of labor and the encountering of serious dangers which
have thus far rendered it a task rarely achieved. Many have attempted to
scale these lonely heights, and many have given up exhausted, glad to
return alive from this perilous experience between earth and sky.
Members of various Alpine clubs cross the Atlantic to climb inferior
elevations. Let such Americans test their athletic capacity and indulge
their ambition by overcoming the difficult ascent of Tacoma.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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