On August 21, I set a series of stakes in the Maclure Glacier, near
Mount Lyell, and found its rate of motion to be little more than an inch
a day in the middle, showing a great contrast to the Muir Glacier in
Alaska, which, near the front, flows at a rate of from five to ten feet
in twenty-four hours. Mount Shasta has three glaciers, but Mount
Whitney, although it is the highest mountain in the range, does not now
cherish a single glacier. Small patches of lasting snow and ice occur on
its northern slopes, but they are shallow, and present no well marked
evidence of glacial motion. Its sides, however, are scored and polished
in many places by the action of its ancient glaciers that flowed east
and west as tributaries of the great glaciers that once filled the
valleys of the Kern and Owen's rivers.
CHAPTER III
THE SNOW
The first snow that whitens the Sierra, usually falls about the end of
October or early in November, to a depth of a few inches, after months
of the most charming Indian summer weather imaginable. But in a few
days, this light covering mostly melts from the slopes exposed to the
sun and causes but little apprehension on the part of mountaineers who
may be lingering among the high peaks at this time.
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