The Ghostly Fire on Mount Rainier
A mountain party finds their camp transformed into an eerie, glowing scene during an alpine electrical storm.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In a rugged spur on the northeast slope of Mount Rainier, dividing the main White river glacier from Inter glacier, is a pass which I named St. Elmo's pass for the following reason: During an outing in that attractive region our party, in an attempt to ascend the mountain by the northeast slope, after a hard day's tramp—the last two hours of which had been spent in crossing the glacier—found ourselves in this pass. The ascent of the northern slope is very abrupt. Upon the arrival of all of our party upon the narrow ridge we decided to make camp for the night. Two made their bed upon the very crest by leveling off a place of suitable size and constructing a wall of loose stones about two feet in height around their couch as a protection from the wind. The rest of the party, five in number, made their beds some distance below.
After one hour, we were awakened by the loud boom and crash of thunder. The forked lightnings leaped from cliff to crag above and below us. We were in the throes of a storm that is witnessed only in the Alps of Europe and the no-lesser Alps of Washington. A gentle falling of rain followed—gentle because we were above the great mass of clouds. After an hour spent in the midst of this 'war of elements,' one of the party upon the crest of the pass ventured to look out. He greeted his companion with the remark: 'I guess it is going to clear off: I see two stars shining.'
But his attention being attracted by a peculiar hissing, he was led to investigate. The two stars proved to be balls of St. Elmo's fire gathering upon the ends of the two alpen-stocks; they had stood erect on each side of their couch. Things became interesting. Chancing to raise our hands we were surprised to see our finger nails illuminated and a slight tingling sensation as the electricity passed down our arms. Looking around us we noticed our tin drinking cups glowing with this strange fire like coals within the grate. It was an awful occasion seldom witnessed. Hence the name St. Elmo's pass.
“Chancing to raise our hands we were surprised to see our finger nails illuminated and a slight tingling sensation as the electricity passed down our arms.”
St. Elmo's fire remains a surreal, naturally occurring electrical phenomenon familiar to high-altitude mountaineers in the Cascades today. While our modern gear is far more sophisticated than the alpen-stocks of 1892, the visceral experience of being caught in a high-alpine electrical storm remains just as terrifying and awe-inspiring as it was over 130 years ago.
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