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Mount Rainier
PARTY OUT ON THE GLACIAL ICE
The guides who take parties out on the glaciers
are familiar with all ridges and crevasses
Photograph by Ranapar Studio
THE GIANT RIVERS OF ICE
EVERY winter the moisture-laden winds from the Pacific, sweeping inland, cool suddenly upon the slopes of the great mountain and deposit there snow in enormous depths. Summer's sun melts only a portion of this snowfall.
Thus are born the glaciers, for the snow under its own pressure quickly hardens into ice. Through twenty-eight valleys, self-carved, in the solid rock, flow these rivers of ice, now turning, as rivers of water turn, to avoid the harder rock strata, now roaring over precipices like congealed water falls, now rippling, like water currents, over rough bottoms, pushing, pouring relentlessly on until they reach those parts of their courses where warmer air turns them into rivers of water.
There are forty-eight square miles of these glaciers.
SNOUT OF THE NISQUALLY GLACIER WHERE THE NISQUALLY RIVER BEGINS
The visitor may park his car at the Nisqually Glacier
Bridge and in a few minutes walk along an excellent trail to within
a short distance of this point
Photograph by Curtis & Miller
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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