The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1935)

November, 1935 T h INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER Tzvciity-one sanctum. Paradise Valley is so filled with early-morning fog that one foot hardly knows where the other wanders as we stumble up the rocky trail. The look-out camp at Muir, ten thousand feet up, had telephoned down that the sun was breaking through, so we hoped that the misty blanket would lift. Twenty-five pounds on a cameraman's back is twenty-five pounds on any good old level stretch, but twenty-five pounds going up Mt. Rainier when the altitude starts getting rare is beyond calculation. The mountaineers spurted along as though muscles didn't exist. A cameraman hates to admit to a mountaineer that he can't take it, so we keep right on spurting along. The nine people plodded in silence, saving good breath to help carry their loads. Nothing but the rhythmic clink of alpenstocks and the clump of feet as we stepped along Indian-file behind the hardy "Swede." The fog grows denser and forms globules of water on our eyelashes. Perspiration drips down from our soaking brows. Underfoot the trail is muddy as we turn down the edge of the moraine that leads onto the ice fields. Who told Fox Movietone News about this glacier, anyway? After an hour or so of going, Swede ordered: "Ten feet apart and watch your step." We pulled our eyes from the heels of ths one immediately ahead and looked around. Just in front of us was a narrow ledge or path, not more than ten inches wide. A few scattered boulders stuck up in mute warning that there was a good supply of others ready to drop down from above. Over the ledge was an abyss filled with grey mist and somewhere to the left, in that abyss the main body of Nisqually Glacier ground its imperceptible way downward. We hastily riveted our eyes to the heels of the plodder ahead, thrust the point of the "alpy'' into an oozy hold and stepped gingerly along. Once over, "Swede" drops aside. "Take a blow," he offers, and we -wilt down onto the wet landscape. Here our progress is not lightened any as we are roped together, four in a group. A pair of pointed contraptions that have been poking me in the back for some time are transferred to my feet. Once strapped on, they prove most efficient in keeping me anchored to a firm footing. "Has everybody got their crampons strapped," says Swede. So that's what they are. Soon we are down on the ice. The snow is pink and generously punctuated with minute black wriggling worms. "Snow worms," say the mountaineers, "and the pink hue is caused by trillions of algae." This calls for someone to tell the tragic tale that seems to be part of the saga of the mountaineer: The algae met a bear. The bear was bulgy. The bulge was algae. The moral of the story is: "No matter how thirsty you are, don't eat glacier snow." Clump, clump go the line of feet. It seems there are to be no more "blows." The surface snow is slushy and going is hard. Every few feet we step over a small crevasse. The fog is still dense, if not denser. We should have been out of the fog by now. but it took a bad turn on us and is creeping upward. So close to our goal it seems impossible to turn back. Swede knows his mountain, if any man does, so we put our faith in him and wind among the crevasses, through the fog. The cracks are getting larger. Some cannot be jumped, even with the security of a rope. We circle around until a narrow spot occurs. Step by step and ledge by ledge we are going higher. At last, after several hours, the fog is thinning. Once it starts, it disappears as if by magic, and we find ourselves peering through dark glasses at an amazing spectacle. We are higher than moving picture equipment has ever been taken on Nisqually. On the right, a steep ice-coated rocky ledge that extends close to the summit. The summit itself appears to be so close that we could reach out and touch it. To the left, an awesome, broken mass of gigantic ice walls. Crevasses a hundred feet wide and five hundred feet deep! Seracs, -worn by an eternity of raging blizzards! Cornices that stand out in sharp white contrast against the blazing sky and wedges that jut out into chasms from which no person would ever return once he missed a step there. What a place for a camera! I used an Akeley with various lenses and shifted from a 23 A. red filter to a G. The mountaineers forgot their weariness and provided plenty of animation; scaling walls by rope, crossing perilous narrow bridges, jumping like mountain goats over crevasses fifteen feet wide and no telling how deep. With sound effects the story would have been perfect. Continuous avalanches rumbled down as tons of ice broke from the walls and hurtled down the glacier. Rocks pelted down from the Chutes and swished over the snow, piling up like mammoth snow balls. There was one other drawback. The fog never quite disappeared. During the several hours that we remained in the stronghold of the Storm Gods, the mist blew in and out, sometimes completely obscuring the glacier and sometimes revealing it in all its wierd glory. At least we had a brief glimpse of the forbidden land, and during that glimpse we pictured its secrets on film, so they are secrets no longer. STATEMENT OF THE OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, CIRCULATION, ETC., REQUIRED BY THE ACTS OF CONGRESS OF AUGUST, 24, 1912, AND MARCH 3, 1933 Of International Photographer, published monthly at Los Angeles, California, for October, 1935. State of California, County of Los Angeles, ss. Before me, a Notary Public in and for the State and county aforesaid, personally appeared Silas E. Snyder, who, having been duly sworn according to law, deposes and says that he is the Editor of the International Photographer, and that the following is, to the best of his knowledge and belief, a true statement of the ownership, management (and if a daily paper, the circulation), etc., of the aforesaid publication for the date shown in the above caption, reguired by the Act of August 24, 1912, as amended by the Act of March 3, 1933, embodied in section 537, Postal Laws and Regulations, printed on the reverse of this form, to-wit: 1. That the names and addresses of the publisher, editor, managing editor, and business managers are: Publisher — International Photographer, Los Angeles, Calif. Editor — Silas E. Snyder, Los Angeles, Calif. Managing Editor — Silas E. Snyder, Los Angeles, Calif. 2. 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