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Resuming our packs, we slowly threaded our way downward to Camp 14, at the western end of the Pinnacle pass cliffs. We there found cans of rations left several days before and, pitching our tent, passed the night. We knew by the signs found there that Kerr and his companions, after taking lunch, had renewed their journey toward Blossom island. Our camp was just at the lower limit of the new snow. To the northward all was of the purest white, but southward, down the glacier, the snow-fields were yellow and much discolored. Many changes had taken place in the Seward glacier since we first saw it ; the pinnacles, snow-tables, and crevasses in the rapids were less striking than formerly, and had evidently suffered greatly from the summer’s heat. About the bases of the cliff’s there were dark, irregular patches of (Mb)* where a month previously all was white. As nearly as could be judged, the surface of the glacier had been lowered by melting and settling during our absence about fifty feet. The following morning, September 5, we started for Blossom island, the weather still continuing thick and stormy. On crossing Pinnacle pass we found over a foot of new snow which had fallen since our companions passed that way. Toward nightfall the lower limit of snow on the Marvine glacier was reached, and at night we; camped on the first moraines which appeared below the never. The day following, September 6, we reached Blossom island about noon, and found that Kerr and his party had arrived there safely, and that Partridge had recovered from his snow-blindness, Our stay above the snow-line had lasted thirty-five days, and we were extremely glad to see the light of a camp-fire and have the trees and flowers about us once more. The vegetation indicated that the season was already far advanced. Most of the flowers had faded, and autumn tints gave brilliancy to the lower mountain slopes salmon berries and huckleberries were in profusion, and furnished an exceedingly agreeable change in our diet. After a. bath in one of the small lakelets on the island and a good night’s rest on a luxuriant bed of spruce boughs, we felt fully restored and ready for another campaign.
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