The Measure of a Mountain, page 22
A number of excellent articles about insects in snow and ice can be found in Insects at Low Temperature, Richard E. Lee, Jr., and David L. Denlinger, editors. Other sources included The Insects, Thomas Eisner and Edward O. Wilson, editors; Insect Behavior, by Robert W. Matthews and Janice R. Matthews; Ecology and Biogeography of High Altitude Insects, by M. S. Mani; The Ecology of Insect Overwintering, by S. R. Leather, et al.; and “Arthropods of Alpine Aeolian Ecosystems,” by John S. Edwards in the Annual Review of Entomology, 1987. The National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders was a helpful general reference. Stephen Jay Gould discusses J. B. S. Kenneth Haldane’s “inordinate fondness for beetles,” and Kermack’s clarification, in his book Dinosaur in a Haystack. Further discussions of species biodiversity can be found in Noah’s Choice, by Charles C. Mann and Mark L. Plummer; and “Counting Species One by One,” by Nigel Stork and Kevin Gaston, New Scientist, August 11, 1990.
Carolyn Dreidger’s A Visitor’s Guide to Mount Rainier Glaciers is a wonderful general guide to the mountain’s glaciers. For more in-depth information about glacial behavior see Glaciers of North America, by Sue A. Ferguson. Edmond Meany’s poem “Carbon Glacier” was published in The Mountaineer, 1909. For further reading about Ötzi the ice man, see The Man in the Ice, by Konrad Spindler.
The Geologic Story of Mount Rainier, by Dwight R. Crandell, provides a basic overview of the mountain’s birth. It’s available at Mount Rainier National Park, or in research libraries as U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1292. For a wider view of Pacific Northwest geology and natural history, see The Natural History of Puget Sound Country, by Arthur Kruckeberg; and Fire Mountains of the West, by Stephen L. Harris. For information about specific Rainier events, see some of Dwight Crandell’s other USGS papers: “Surficial Geology of Mount Rainier National Park, Washington” (U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1288); “Volcanic Hazards at Mount Rainier, Washington” (U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1238, written with D. R. Mullineaux); “Rockfalls and Avalanches from Little Tahoma Peak on Mount Rainier, Washington” (U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1221-A, written with Robert K. Fahnestock); and “A Recent Volcanic Mudflow of Exceptional Dimensions from Mount Rainier, Washington” (American Journal of Science, June 1956, written with H. H. Waldron). Kevin Scott’s research (with James Vallance and Pat Pringle) on Rainier flows was published in “Sedimentology, behavior, and hazards of debris flows at Mount Rainier, Washington,” U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1547. Mount Rainier: Active Cascade Volcano, published by the U.S. Geodynamics Committee of the National Research Council, is a useful report on the potential hazards of Rainier. Detailed information on the summit fumaroles can be found in “Hydrothermal Processes at Mount Rainier, Washington,” David Frank’s PhD thesis, kept at the University of Washington’s Allen Library; a shorter version of Frank’s thesis appeared in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, volume 65 (1995). For general historical information about volcanoes, see Volcanoes: Fire from the Earth, by Maurice Krafft. Frank Dawson Adams’s The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences provides a wealth of information about the early years of earth science. For information about plate tectonics, see This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics, by W. Jacquelyne Kious and Robert I. Tilling, available from the U.S. Geological Survey. The map that goes along with the Kious and Tilling book is especially informative.
For further information on marmots, see Marmots: Social Behavior and Ecology, by David P. Barash.
Information about Scott Fischer’s death on Everest was drawn from a number of secondhand and printed sources, including Claudia Glenn Dowling’s August 1996 article in Life magazine and Jon Krakauer’s outstanding book on the Everest disaster, Into Thin Air.
John Muir’s summit climb is recounted in John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, edited by Linnie Marsh Wolfe; and in Aubrey Haines’ Mountain Fever. Muir’s essay “An Ascent of Mount Rainier” is reprinted in his collection Steep Trails.
Nontechnical references on high altitude begin with Charles Houston’s classic Going Higher: The Story of Man and Altitude. Medicine for Mountaineering, edited by James A. Wilkerson, is a good book to keep in camp, if not on the trail. Other useful sources include High Altitude and Man, John B. West and Sukhamay Lahiri, editors; High Altitude Medicine and Physiology, second edition, Michael P. Ward, et al. Historical material was drawn from Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus, by Robert Steele; The Tarikh-I-Rashidi, or, A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, by Mirza Muhammad Haidar, edited by N. Elias, translated by E. Denison Ross; The Respiratory Function of the Blood, Part I: Lessons from High Altitude, by Joseph Barcroft; and Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory by Marjorie Hope Nicolson. Hornbein and Messner’s high-altitude experiences come from Everest: The West Ridge, by Thomas Hornbein; and The Crystal Horizon, by Reinhold Messner. Many of the studies cited in this chapter come from medical journal articles too numerous to cite; interested readers may write to the publisher and request the list.
Cascade-Olympic Natural History: A Trailside Reference, by Daniel Mathews, is a wonderfully literate and comprehensive trail companion; I relied upon Mathews’s knowledge and spent many mountain evenings with his elegant prose. Other sources included Mountain Plants of the Pacific Northwest, by Ronald J. Taylor and George W. Douglas; Mountain Flowers of the Cascades & Olympics, by Harvey Manning; Wildflowers of Mount Rainier and the Cascades, by Mary A. Fries; Western Forests, by Stephen Whitney; and Northwest Trees, by Stephen F. Arno and Ramona P. Hammerly. Among the sources for specific botanic research were “The Role of Lupine in Succession on Mount St. Helens,” by William F. Morris and David M. Wood, Ecology, June 1989; “Mending the Meadow: High-Altitude Meadow Restoration in Mount Rainier National Park,” by Regina M. Rochefort and Stephen T. Gibbons, Restoration & Management Notes, Winter 1992; and “Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Trees in Subalpine Meadows of Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, U.S.A.,” by Regina M. Rochefort and David L. Peterson, Arctic and Alpine Research, 1996 (volume 28, number 1). For information about the Park Service’s tenure at Mount Rainier, see Wonderland: An Administrative History of Mount Rainier National Park, by Theodore Catton, available at the National Park Service library in Seattle.
The story of the Marine transport disaster was culled from interviews, newspaper reports, and National Park Service records stored in the National Archives’ Pacific Northwest regional repository in Seattle. The deaths of Sean Ryan and Phil Otis were reported from interviews and the official National Park Service Case Record, with additional material from Melanie Mavrides’s August 20, 1995, New York Times story and Hal Clifford’s article, “Tragedy on Mount Rainier,” in Snow Country, January 1996.
Marjorie Hope Nicolson’s brilliant book on the cultural, religious, literary, and historical meanings of mountains, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory, was recently reprinted by the University of Washington Press. My research was aided by Early Travellers in the Alps, by Gavin R. De Beer; The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by H. R. Trevor-Roper; The Sacred Mountain of Tibet: On Pilgrimage to Kailas, by Russell Johnson and Kerry Moran; Images and Symbols, by Mircea Eliade; Cuchama and Sacred Mountains, by W. Y. Evans-Wentz; Dawn Behind the Dawn: A Search for an Earthly Paradise, by Geoffrey Ashe; The Idea of the Holy, by Rudolf Otto; and “Ascending Mount Fuji,” by T. R. Reid, in the August 27, 1994, Washington Post.
Accounts of both the Kautz and the Stevens/Van Trump ascents can be found in Meany’s Mount Rainier: A Record of Exploration. Fred Beckey’s Cascade Alpine Guide 1 contains the most accurate route information for climbers considering Rainier.
INDEX
Page numbers in boldface indicate map
A–B
Abbey, Edward
Accidents in North American Mountaineering
Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS)
Adams, Frank Dawson
Allison, Stacy
Alpine plants. See also Subalpine plants
Altitude-related sicknesses
Anderson, Hans
Andesite
Anemones
Anniversary Poem
Armstrong Line
Arnold, Kenneth
“Ascent of Mount Rainier, An,”
Ashford (WA)
Atmosphere
Baker, Glenn
Barash, David
Barcroft, Joseph
Barometric pressure
Bears
Beckey, Fred
Beetles
Beidleman, Neal
Beilstein, George
Bell, Ann
Bell, Charlie
Bernstein, Jeremy
Beyond the Limits: A Woman’s Triumph on Everest
Bible, mountains in
Bishop, Brent
Blumstein, Dan
Boardman, Peter
Boardman Tasker Omnibus
Bohner, Chris
Books. See Literature
Buddhist mythology
Bugs. See Insects
Burke, Edmund
Burleson, Todd
Burroughs Mountain
Bush, Gus
Butler, Bill
C–D
Camas
Camp Muir
altitude
buildings
characters
graffiti
Camp Schurman
Canoe and the Saddle, The
Carbon Glacier
movement of
“Carbon Glacier” (poem)
Carbon River
Card, Skip
Cascade-Olympic Natural History
Cascade Range, formation of
Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO)
Challenge of Rainier, The
Circumnavigating Mount Rainier
Clark, William
Climbing
dealing with risks
death and
justifying
literature
risk on descents
Coffey, Ron
Coiner, Beverly (Colonel)
Coleman, Edmund
Columbia Crest
Continental drift
Cox, Pam
Crandell, Dwight (“Rocky”)
Craver, John, rescue of
Crevasses
d’Arezzo, Ristoro
Daddy longlegs (harvestmen)
Dangerous Sky, The
Davies, Ken
De Saussure, Horace Bénédict
Death
association with mountains
climbing and
making sense of
Dengler, Bill
Descending, risks of
Dickenson, Karen
Dill, C. C. (Senator)
Disappointment Cleaver
Donne, John
Drake, Roger
Dreams
Dry Creek
Dunn, George
Duwamish Indians, myths
E–F
Earthquakes
Lassen Peak
Mount Rainier
Mount St. Helens
Edwards, John
Edwards, Ola
Eiger Dreams
Electron Mudflow
Emerald Ridge
Emmons Glacier
rescues and deaths on
Ershler, Phil
Erxleben, Jennifer
Eunice Lake
Evelyn, John
Faults
around Mount Rainier
Feher-Elston, Catherine
Filley, Bette
Fischer, Scott
final climb of Everest
major climbs
Two O’Clock Rule
Flooding, Mount Rainier
Freeman, Ross
Fryingpan Creek
Fryingpan Glacier
G–H
Gardner, Alan (Sir)
Gauthier, Mike (“Gator”)
Geologic Story of Mount Rainier, The
Gibraltar Rock
Gillett, John
Glacial flooding
Glacier Basin
Glaciers
bodies found in
deaths due to
formation and movement
on Mount Rainier
prehistoric
rocks expelled from
role in Puget Sound geography
in Washington state
See also entries for individual glaciers
God and mountains
Golden Lakes
Goldman, Peter
Golf course at Paradise
Gould, Carl
Granodiorite
Grylloblattids
Guide services, Mount Rainier
Habeler, Peter
Haidar, Mirza Muhammad
Haines, Aubrey
Haldane, J. B. S.
Hargreaves, Alison
Harvestmen (daddy longlegs)
Heather
Hellebore
Hess, Rob
High-altitude cerebral edema (HACE)
High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE)
High altitudes
adapting to
limits of survival in
Hillary, Edmund (Sir)
Hindu mythology
Hornbein, Tom
Huckleberries
Humboldt, Alexander von
Hypothermia, early warning signs
I–K
Ice worms
Icefalls
Indian Bar
Indian Henry
Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground
Ingraham, E. S.
Ingraham Glacier
Ingraham Icefall
Insects
adaptations to cold conditions
dispersal of
number of species
range of habitats
in snow
Jangbu, Lobsang
John Muir expedition
Juan de Fuca plate
Jumping spiders (Euophrys omnisuperstes)
Jung, Carl
Kautz, August
Kermack, Kenneth
Khan, Said (Sultan)
Kirschner, Rick
Klapatche Ridge
Krakauer, Jon
Krause, Wes
Kruckeberg, Arthur
Krummholz
L
Lachalet
Lacy, John
Ladybugs
Lahars (mudflows)
Lane, Franklin, (U.S. Secretary of the Interior)
Larson, Bill
Lassen Peak, earthquakes
Lewis and Clark expedition
Liberty Cap
Liberty Ridge
Lisowski, Ed
Litch, Jim
Literature
climbing
Mount Everest
Mount Rainier
Little Tahoma
Longmire
naming
Longmire, James
Longmire, Virinda
Lummi Indians, myths and mythology
Lupine
M
Magnitude
Mallory, George
Malone, Steve
Mann, Thomas
Manning, Harvey
Marine transport crash
Marmots
burrows
hibernation
physical characteristics
social behaviors
species
whistles
Mathews, Daniel
McGovern, David
McHale, Dan
McKinley, William (President)
Meadows
restoring
Meany, Edmond
Memoirs of a Mountain Guide
Merriam, C. Hart
Merton, Thomas
Messner, Reinhold
Meyers, Bruce
Mining, on Mount Rainier
Molenaar, Dee
Moran, Seth
Morgan, Murray
Moths
Mount Adams
Mount Baker, in Native American myths
Mount Chimborazo, insects found on
Mount Everest
cost of climbing
dangers of oxygen deprivation on
death rates for climbers
increased accessibility to
insects found on
literature
Nepalese name
permit fees
successful Northwest climbers of
Mount Fremont
Mount Fuji
Mount Hira
Mount Hood, in Native American myths
Mount Kailas
Mount Meru
Mount Olympus
Mount Rainier Mining Company
Mount Rainier National Park, creation and naming
Mount Rainier
alternate names
ascent by Barcott et al.
ascent by Muir et al.
ascent by Van Trump and Stevens
barometric pressure at summit
bodies on
circumnavigating
climbing routes
cost of climbing
deaths on
difficulty of climbing
earthquakes
faults
first recorded ascent of
flooding
formation of
geologic age of
glaciers
guide services
height
hydrothermal system
insects found on
literature
local proprietary interest in
location
longitudinal position
Marine transport crash into
