THE CONQUEST OF MOUNT MeKINLEY.• MOUNT MCKINLEY, the central peak
of the Alaskan Range, is not only the highest summit in North America, but in many ways the most inaccessible peak on the globe. Other high mountains rise from elevated plateaux, ten thousand feet high or more; but on Mount McKinley from its highest glacier there is at least fifteen thousand feet of climbing. To reach it you must travel several hundreds of miles up swift rivers and through swamps and thickets where trails are unknown. Moreover, it stands near the Arctic Circle and the line of perpetual snow is probably not higher than two thousand five hundred feet. This means that the upper snow and ice exist under conditions different from any other climb- able mountain, and the traveller is at the mercy of weather far more severe than anything known elsewhere. Mr. Browne says truly that ten thousand feet on the Alaskan peak involves far greater hardships than twenty thousand feet in the Andes. To conquer Mount McKinley, then, required certain qualities not often found even in good mountaineers: great skill in wilderness travel, including the management of dogs, horses, and boats, for it is nearly as difficult to reach the mountain as to climb it ; remarkable physical endurance ; and the same kind of indifference to discomfort that marks Polar explorer; for the climber is far from a base and has to carry everything on his back. The history of the mountain is curious. News of it was first brought to the outside world by a young American, W. A. Dickey, who, having suffered from the company of two prospectors who were rabid advocates of free silver, retaliated by naming the big mountain after the cham- pion of the gold standard. It is a pity that one of the Indian names, " Tennally" or " Doleika," could not be restored. The first attempt to climb it was made by Wickersham on the north face; this was followed by Dr. Cook's expedition in 1903, a some- what perfunctory attempt on the same side. Then came the three serious efforts chronicled in this work, and between the first and second of these occurred Dr. Cook's alleged conquest of the peak, which Mr. Browne was able most effectively to dis- prove. It is a racily written narrative, modest, candid, good- humoured, full of an abiding passion for high places and wild life—the kind of book which is produced in America to- day better than anywhere else. The enterprise deserved a worthy chronicler, for it is in its way the most remarkable story of Alpine adventure that we have ever read. The repeated patient assaults on the peak remind one of Whymper and the Matterhorn, but here the work was on a colossal scale, and the risks were out of all proportion greater. Happily, unlike the earlier story, there was no tragic conclusion.
The 1906 expedition, which included the author, Professor Parker, and Dr. Cook, attempted to find a pass west of Mount McKinley which would lead to the north side of the chain. They travelled in summer, and had endless difficulties with their horses in the callous and glacier streams. They came close to the southern and western faces of the mountain, and saw clearly that they were unclimbable. On returning to the coast Dr. Cook left the others on the pretext that he wished to explore more fully the water-route to the base of the chain, and returned in a few weeks saying that he had climbed Mount McKinley. It was obvious to his former companions that this could not be true, for he had not been long enough absent even to reach the mountain. However, the claim was made, and Dr. Cook published a book giving photographs of the route and of the summit In 1910 Mr. Browne and Professor Parker made another attempt on the southern side, also in summer, partly with the view of deter- mining finally the practicability of the peak on this side, and partly to settle the question of Dr. Cook's performance. In the latter object they were completely successful. They dupli- cated his photographs; discovered that the cliff he had described as eight thousand feet high was only three hundred feet above the glacier, and its altitude only five thousand three hundred feet above the sea level; and, finally, on an adjacent saddle found the very rook outcrop whieh he had • The Conquest of Mount McKinley. By Delmore Browne. London: G. r. Pannm's Sons. [us, net.] photographed as the summit of the mountain. The place was miles away from Mount McKinley. We need say no more on the subject, for the strange obsession which led a man of proved courage and capacity to these fantastic inventions is not a matter which any mountaineer cares to dwell upon. The expedition proceeded up the great McKinley glacier, but were hopelessly beaten by the mighty seraca at its head. They saw enough, however, to realize that there was no chance on the south side, and that if any way could be found to the top it must be by one of the north-eastern aretes.
The final expedition of 1912 was a winter one, for it had become plain that the question of transport to the north aide of the range could be more easily solved by dogs and sledges than by boats and packs. The whole account of the journey is delightful, for there is something about a dog-team which inspires quaint and amusing incidents of traveL It was a wild venture, for everything depended on finding a possible crossing of the range between Mount McKinley and Broad Pass, and till they stumbled upon the col after traversing a wilderness of glaciers they did not know whether their toil was not all in vain. Once on the northern side, they were in the country of the white Alaskan sheep, and fresh meat could be obtained. Mr. Browne is a hunter as well as a mountaineer, and the sporting chapters are uncommonly well done. There is an attractive description of the coming of spring in that wild north land, which to eyes tired with snow and ice seemed an earthly paradise. A base camp was established, and towards the end of April a reconnaissance with a dog. team was made up to eleven thousand feet. They had some close shaves in the much.orevassed glaciers, and the whole business at that time of year was highly dangerous. But they found out what they wanted to know. There was a break in the ridge which could be reached from the glacier, and this ridge, which seemed climbable, led up to the basin between the twin peaks of the mountain.
The great attempt began on June 5th. Doge were taken to the base of the first serac, and Mr. Browne, Professor Parker, and Mr. La Voy carried supplies up to a cache near the foot of the co/. After a reconnaissance of the ridge ahead they found the climbing so hard and slow that they returned and packed twelve days' provisions. Their physical condi- tion was deplorable—their eyes half closed from snow-blindness, the skin black, and the hands cracked and bleeding. They found, too, that they could not digest pemmican, their chief article of food. The last camp was at 16,615 feet, and the morning of the final climb dawned clear and bright. At 6 a.m. they started, and made only four hundred feet an hour. At eighteen thousand five hundred feet they stopped and congratulated themselves on having attained the altitude record for North America, for Mount St. Elias, which the Duke of the Abruzzi ascended, is only eighteen thousand feet. At nineteen thousand feet they topped the ridge and saw the summit. "It rose as innocently as a tilted snow-covered tennis-court." Then the weather changed and a blizzard began to blow. After the twenty-thousand-foot level was passed the cold and the force of the wind grew terrible, and the climb became an evil dream :— "Up to this time," says Mr. Browne, "we had been working in the lee of the north heel of the horseshoe ridge, but as I topped the small rise made by the crack I was struck by the full fury of the storm. The breath was driven from my body, and I held to my axe with stooped shoulders to stand against the gale ; I couldn't go ahead. As I brushed the frost from my glasses and squinted upward through the stinging snow I saw a sight which will haunt mete my dying day. The slope above me was no longer steep. That was all I could see. What it meant I will never know for certain—all I can say is that we were close to the top l"
They had to go back or perish, and that within a few minutes' walk of the actual summit. A wind of at least fifty- five miles an hour and a temperature of at least fifteen degrees below, zero are not to be trifled with by mortal man. Apart from this and indigestion, they suffered no ill effects from the altitude ; and Mr. Browne rolled and smoked a cigarette at nineteen thousand feet. They made another attempt next day, but again were driven back by blizzards, and regretfully they were compelled to descend. It was a very weary and broken trio that crawled down the ridges and the glaciers, and when they reached the moraine it was after thirty days in snow and ice. No wonder that they wept like children when the smell of grass and flowers was blown up the pass. Technically they had not reached the top of the peak, but they had conquered it, and to the gallant little party belongs the credit of one of the most amazing feats of pluck, endurance, and wise management in Alpine annals. The great mountain saluted them as they left with a prodigious earthquake, which draped every cliff with avalanches. They travelled northwards till they struck the Yukon, and so returned to what Alaskans call "the outside."
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