Billy Taylor, Sourdough

NOitMAN BRIGHT

THE audacity of the fouf tillicums who, in 1910, conquered Mt.McKinley's North Peak, has been a never.-ending source of

astonishment to prescnt·day mountaineers. At that time, only oneof the Great Four-McKinley, Log-01n, St. Elias, and Lucania­had fallen, and that, St. Elias, the third highest peak on the con­tinent, in 1897, under the intrepid heel of the Duke of the Abruzzi.

However, several attempts had already been made to reach thesummit of McKinley. Judge Wickersham, with his expedition of1903, was the leader of the van. But he met with insuperabledifficulties and returned to report that the man who expected toscale the mountain over th05e grim precipices would need a flyingmachine I

Dr. Frederick A. Cook led two expeditions and wrote the bookTo the Top of the COllti"ent, in which he set forth his claims to themountain. The book met with considerable antagonism in theNorth, and men who knew the country best were incensed at whatthey believed to be a hoax. Several, in particular, borrowed theonly copy of the book available in Fairbanks and read it eagerly,Their knowledge of the range, obtained while prospecting along thespurs and foothills of the mountain itself, enabled them, they:affirmed, to detect the very page wherein the fine writing began.

Thomas Lloyd, whose stoutness of build would hardly recom­mend him for candidacy all a climbing expedition, boasted that hecould climb McKinley, and offered to lead an expedition LO disprovethe claims of Dr. Cook. Three pioneer saloon-keepers of Fair­banks and Chena offered to put up $500 apiece to back him. Lloydselected his own men, one of whOm was young William Taylor,stout of limb and rugged of body, as stalwart a yotlth as ever cameto the North to seek his fortune.

All outline of the expedition is in order at this point. It wassimply a long mush. The equipment consisted of their regularoutfit plus a few mountaineering implements they made on the Spurof the moment. They left Fairbanks in December with fourhorses to carry their supplies. Later they used dogs. The threecamps on the mountain were at seven·mile intervals, the first of

Billy Taylor, Sourdough 275

which was occupied Oil February 27th. Much time was s~nt re­turning to the flats to hum-they liva:! to a !:J.rge extent ofT thecountry, killing caribou and moose-and to get firewood. Polesfor the tellts and for use in bridging thc crevasses had also to besledged up from timber. Frequent storms delayed progress.Thirty below weather- was not unusual.

Their aim was simply to climb the lnountain to show that t.ht:feats of endurance about which the cheechacos bragged, featswhich thcy (thc cheechacos) found impossible of accomplishmcnt,were, to the sourdoughs, not only possible, but were, furthermore.the usual thing in their strenuous existence. So, with this aim,the four sourdoughs dropped their picks, and, taking along noscientific equipment, sei out to take the mountain in slride. Theironly camera was a $5 affair with which thcy took about thirtypictures, only twcnty of which wcre any good at all.

After more than thirty days on the mountain itself, movingtheir supplies forward, they had established themselves at Il,(XX)ft., and planned 10 make the attack on the summit from there, OnApril 3d, therefore, Taylor, McGonagall, and Anderson SCi out [orthe summit, but only Taylor and AnderSOIl arrived. Slightlyhandicapped by the weight of a 14-£1. spruce sapling, they none­theless made the ascent of 9(XX) ft. of verlica.l devation in goodstyle. With conside.rable labor they set up their pole, hauled upthe American flag and by nightfall they were back at the TunnelCamp.

Inullediately following the climb, while his companions re­mained to do their assessnK:nt work, Uoyd took several dogs and,within a week, reached Fairbanks. He announced that all in thepatty had reached both summits. Lloyd was the only one to keepany written record' and this comprised only brief notes scribbleddown in an old memorandum book in which he had written therecords of other mush('s. The following excerpts from that recordas he dictat ...-d it to W. F. Thnmpsoll are of interest:

March 4.-Camped last night at The Willows, 29(X) ft, Weare camped in a pothole ill the glacier in the blue balloon silk tent.111e coal-oil stove is working fine.

Marcil 7.-We hunted all day for the aneroid. [It was loanedto them by Davidson but Lloyd lost it on the way to the PotholeCamp. His elevations, therefore, arc only estimates.]

276 Billy Ta.ylor, Sourdqugh

.March 8.-<:harley and Pete spent the day hauling wood andpoles from timberline on Oearwater.

March 9.-The boys are still hauling wood. I spent the daycutting stakes to stake the trail over the glacier, so that we can findour way up and back in the stonn. Taylor had 50 miles to go forfish when he left us on the 2nd, a week ago, but he hasn't re­turned yet.

March 10.-Going across the glacier ... on the first 4 or 5miles there are no crevasse; ... but the next eight are terrible forcrevasses... The rotlte is practkally E. and W. until we turnedclose to McKinley. Then the trail turned to the S... The stovewould sink, natllrally, from the heat, and we had to keep diggingdown and lowering our beds to keep on the levd wilh the slove.

March 17.-The next camp will be our last. sleeping camp.The trail is 8 miles long, and we are staking all of it. We wouldmush on each day ... and drop back at night to the Pothole Campunlil we had finally established our last camp... It has been verysoft in places and very dangerous on the trail, but we can travel itnow with the assistance of our poles and with roughlocks on oursnowshoes. [Each man had a long pike JXI1e which he carried ina horizontal position so that whenever he fell into a crevasse, theends of the pole caught on either side and saved him from injury.)We would throw the poles across the crevasse, throw snow on thepoles until it "stood up" and fiJI in until we could snowshoe across.

Marcil ZO.-We had travelled so much on the trail with snow~

shoes that it had hardened enough to hold up the dogs.Marcil Z2.-Oo this trip we were always praying for the

thennomenter to drop, so that it couldn't snow any more... Afterwe had driven that tunnel we climbed onto the roof of the ridge,which was about 50 ft. above the roof of the tunnel, and lookedover the other side. I f we had driven the tunnel a little furtherin, so as to have a back door to our home, and had opened that backdoor, we would have found ourselves looking down a precipicewhich stood at about 80° to perpendicular.

Marcil 27.-While the boys above us are cutting the final stepsto the summit today, Taylor and I go back to the Willow Campfor wood... Talking of McKinley we call it "Mae-"

Then follows Lloyd's fictitious account of the ascent of theSouth Peak On the 2nd, and "the last ascent" to place the flag on

Billy Taylor, Sourdough ZJ7

the top of the North Peak, the following day, April 3d. After hisnarration of the two ascents, Lloyd observes, "But for their help,1 never could have do~ half of even what I did do. TIle troublewith me principally, was that I was mostly too fat for climbingmountains, but I lost 30 pounds on the trip."

Had Lloyd, on returning to Fairbanks, told the simple truth, in­stead of padding his story so that all would get credit for the fir!>tascent, there would have been no question concerning the validityof their claims. As it was, not until three years later was anycredence given to the Sourdoughs' just claim to the North Peak.Credit for the verification of their climb should go to the eagle­eyed Walter Harper, halfbreed native boy, who, climbed towardthe S. summit with Archdeacon Stuck in 1913, described, on theapex of the North Peak, the flagpole put there three years beforeby Billy Taylor and Pete Anderson. Save for the splendid eye­sight of this Indian lad, and for the fact that the pole had with­stood the stonns of three years, their climb would remain todaymerely as a mountaineering legend instead of as mountaineeringhistory, and Billy Taylor's rt:rollectiolls of the expedition wouldbe regarded as pleasant ficlion. For the flagpole has disappearedlong since.

Now, twenty-seven years later, let us meet Mr. William R.Taylor, youngest member of Tom Lloyd's "Sourdough" E~i·tion.

It was suppertime on a hot mid July day in 1937. The doorsof the roadhouse at McKinley Park Station were open and a re­(reshing breeze swept through the sultry kitchen. At the kitchencounter sat several men tardily devouring the last of an txcellentmeal. The lady o( the house was busy with the dishes. Outside.a man was putting up his dogs. As he entered, removed his coat,and found a stool next to mine, the proprietress and several of theoldtimers greeted him with unaffected enthusiasm and affection.

Busy reading a mountaineering book, a treat which [ had antici­pated all day, I simply lookcd up, thcn continued reading. I SllP~

posed him to be an oldtimer himself as everyone seemed to know

him."Is that a map of Alaska?" be asked, referring to the Alaska

Steamship Company map marking my place."Yes," I answered, handing it [Q him.

278 Billy Ta'yJor, Sourdough

"That's the book I was talking to l'OU about," remarked the pro·prietress as she put the newly baked bre<ld to cool and came to standbefore him.

The Asce,d of Denali, I said :lS I flipped the cover into viewand then continued reading.

"Wen, this is the Mr. William Taylor mentioned in the book,"she announced.

] hadn't read of Mr. William Taylor being in Stuck's party. Iwas frankly puzzled.

"How far up the mountain did you get?" I blundered."To the top," he said calmly."What is your name again?" r asked excitedly."Billy Taylor," he replied. giving the nickname which everyone

in the North affectionately uses.I knew then that I was talking to One of the members of the

19JO Expedition. and onc who had succeeded in conquering theNorth Peak. My amazement al finding one of the "old" sour­doughs slill alive and not yet showing even the traces of senilitydid not prevent me f rom finding out everytbing I could from him.between the moment of the introduction a bit after 6 P.M. and thetime he put his dogs on the freight and clambered aboard himself,11.30 P.W.

The first part of the interview was carried on while Bill gavehis three dogs, Mickey, Spot and Ace, their suppers. Mickey, whois with Billy in the picture, is part wolf and part malamute, weighs100 Jbs., is the Illost powerful dog Taylor has ever had. The snap·shot of him and his dog was taken at 6.30 P.lloI. but the Alaskan sunwas till high above the horizon.

After the dogs had been attended to, we went out to the bunkhouse where Billy rested on the sleeping-bag on top of my bunkand answered questions. \Vhen he took a few minutes rc<:ess tosay goodbye to his friends in the roadhouse, T wrote out a list ofmore tb.,.n thiny questions. He returned a.nd answered six ofthem. A half hour later, so as not to keep the other occllpants ofthe bunkhouse awake, we moved to the blacksmith shop acrossfrom the station. A fire still burned in the forge. Dilly found aseat on a workbench while I chose an anvil near the flame where Icould see to write. At question num/)er nineteen we heard thetrain whistle, and, 011 the run back to the roodhouse to get thedogs, I asked the remaining questions.

BiJly Taylor, Sourdough 279

Affable uescribes Billy Taylor. He answered my questions foralmost five hours! The fact that everyone calls him Billy is onlyone indication which leads one to believe that Lloyd was sincerewhen he declared: "Taylor and I have been partners for years and(' don't claim that is because of any good qualities of mine) 1 havenever had words with him. He is beyond question one of thefinest men you ever met." Tom Lloyd was simply making a statc~

mel1l which many since must h..,,\ve corroborated.As to physical attributes, Lloyd described him as "a big man

and strong as a horse." He has a m.assive fmme with tremendousshoulders, the widest I have ever seen. At twenty-two hc musthave been exceedingly strong. His weight now is around 250 1bs.He wears false teeth which are especially noticeable when he talks.At lwellty~two (sec photograph) his hairline was high. Now, atforty-nine it is a trifle thin. lIis right thumb is cut off at the firstjoint; he must have lost it since the expedition, as his right hand,which reSIS on L1oyd's shoulder (1910 photograph) seems to bewhole. He wore loose bib-overalls, a soiled shirt llIuch wrinkledat the elbows, a blue blazer, shoepacks and a baltered hat, His out­fit consisted of a homc-made packboanl.

This huge man with his jovial laugh, for all the world like thefat plumber I knew in Fairbanks was the conqueror of McKinley.He was the embodiment of those hearty wights of massive. build towhom Shakespeare attributed the most abundant good nature.

Twenty-seven years before, this man who now wheezed whenhe rail had dropped his mining fOr a few momhs 10 make a matter­of ~fact mush to the fOp of McKinley's North Peak. In so doinghe and his companioll, Pete Anderson, had unsuspecting!y per~

formed the greatest 101lr de force in the annals of mountaineeringon this contillent-theamazing feat of climbing from 1l,(0) ft. tothe top and back ill one da,r!

From Ihis man I wished to learn: (1) What kind of men werethe Sourdoughs? (2) How did the idea of the climb originate?(3) How were the dimi)ers selected? (4) What was their previ­OliS experience? (5) or what their (:quipmclIt consiSI~d. (6)His own story of the climb.

Illtennew

Wllo ,«'ere the melllbers of tile c.rpctlilion? Thomas Lloyd, hewas the lcad~r, Charley MeGonag:l.lI, Pete Anderson, and myself.

280 DiU., Taylor, Sourdowgll

How did the idea gel started! It got started through Cook'sclaims and everyone thought it w<u a fake. Lloyd was backed byFairbanks men, three. I think it was. He !laid he could pick menwho could climb it and they put up the money.

WIlD we", the bockns! Gus Peterson, E. W. Griffin, andW. H. (Bill) McPhee.

Arc any of tluml living! Well, darned if r know. McPheeis dead, I know. Griffin, I don't know, I "kinda" think he is. ButPeterson's alive. Leastwise. he was a year ago.

Wher, is he IMHUf He's outside someplace. He was locatedin Yakima. He had a ranch there. Haven't heard of him fortwo or three years. But his brother was in Fairbanks a year ago.

How old were you wilen you «tent 0,.. the expedj/wtlf I thinkI was eighteen but 1'm not rightly sure.

When wertl yo~ bor,,! March 15th, 1888. (He was twenty·one when he joined the expedition, spent his twenty-second birth­day on the glacier.]

HIhere' Ontario, Canada.Whc'l did you come to Alaska' 1901 or 1902, I don't rightly

remember. [Mildly irritated, at himself, not me.1 Goddamil! Inever kept a diary. [He must have been only thirteen or fourteenwhen he came North to make his own living.]

How did you ,"oke a living! Driving teams. Owned my ownteams. Sold out and went to Kantishna. [He pronounced it withone more syllable than its spelling indicates-"Kantishina," the waynearly everyone says it.] Had pack-horses first. Sold them andgot dogs.

HUlu did )'014 Iwppen to be selected! Well, Lloyd just selectedme. He knew me and he knew of me. (!)

DQ you know how he picked his fIIen' He just knew fellerswho were pretty skookum. He had been around the camps a gooddeal and picked one here and one there.

What can yolt tell tHe about Lloyd' He was prob.,bly close tosixty-well, in the fifties anyhow. I imagine he was damn closeto sixty. He'a been dead close to fifteen years, I guess. Died s001l

after the ascent-in '14 or '15. I know 1 went "outside" and whenJ came back he was dead. He was awful fat. Had kind of anervous breakdown and jusl keeled over.

What SQ1't tuas lief He was fine in his way, but he was lookin'for too much fame. He conflicted his stories by telling his inti-

Billy Taylor, Sourdougll 2S1

nute friends he didn't climb it and told others he was at the top.We didn't get out till June and, then, they didn't believe any of ushad climbed it. But Stuck verified the climb. He found the pole.The halfbrced W:\S the first one to see it.

Did Lloyd make anything from the story! Not that 1 knowof. Because he couldn't sell the story after he balled it up. Wehad to take care of our assessments. He was the he3d of the partyand we never dreamed he wouldn't give a straight story. I wishto God we "hadda" been there. Of course OUf intimate Friendsbelieved us. But there was no prooF until Stuck verified the poletwo years later. Lloyd was no writer. He took the data. A rei·low by the name W. F. Thompson, newswriter, editor of the Fair­banks Ntnvs-Mi"er wrote the story.

Was 1't pflbli.sllcd? Just in the loc.1.1 paper. He didn't writethe whole story. He kept that to sell to a syndicate. AfterLloyd balled the thing up. he quit in disgust.

What sort of a fellow uw Pete Anderson! Big husky Swede.Hell of a goo<! fellow on the trail. Him and I'd go along andIlever have no trouble at all. He wall a husky "sonofagun." Wedone all the work but we never got credit for llOthin'. None ofthose poinl5 was named after us. I had implicit confidence inUoyd so I never kept no data on it at all.

How old ansoll was Pelef He was in his prime then. I thinkPete must be tell years older than me, anyway.

l¥hcre does he livef Nenana. He has a tinsmith shop. He'sonly home nights. Between jobs he's always building a stove orsome goddam thing.

And McGonagal1! Well, he-I don't know how old JohnnyIhe must have said "Charley"l was at that time, but he used tomush dogs on the "trail" to Valdez [now the Rid1.1.rdSOIl High­way I and he's been prospecting and doing all sorts of work beforeand since. I haven't seen him for severnl years.

{McGonagall, whom I met in Fairbanks th:~ summer, admitssixty-eight years, although his friend, Harry Karstens, who livesa few doors from him says Charley is fudging two years, that he isseventy, ten years older than Karstens. So McGonagall must havebeen over forty in 191O.}

I heard tluJt he pioneered Ille moil service 0,. "The TroiIr" Aman by the name of Ben Downing (?) did, I think and him andKarstens were his driverS. Karstens was with Stuck. He [Kar-

282 Billy Taylor, Sourdollgh

stens I used to be superintendent of the park here-just beforeLick. I imagine him and Pete was c1o!ie to the same age. [If so,Petl/; was about thirty-two at the time of the climb.]

Wlwt were )'OU doing the tvinlsr of 1909' Prospecting.Wllere! Kantishna.When did YOl~ star~ on tho expeditiollf We left Fairbanks

with four head of horses the 22nd December, 1909.Whal kind of supplies did you take! Oh, bacon, beans, flour,

sugar, dried fruits. butter, and a general outfit.Dill :V0II have any special high altitude rations' No. Just

bacon aod beans. Had doughnuts on the highest. That's all wetook up with us--:md hot chocolate-a thennas bottle api~. Justtook ;l. hal f a dozen doughnuts in a sack and srdned out. 1 hadthree left when I got back. That is, from the ll,(xx)'ft. level. Ofcourse up to that time we used C<'lribou meat {rom the coulltry.

Did :)o'ou, like Stuck, fIlllke pemmican! No, we just had steaksand stews. They took two weeks on the trip that we made ineighteen hours. No, a month, I think. Wcll, we made it all inone day, by God! Just breaking day, a little after three, when westarted, and I know it was dark-gNting dusk-when we got back.T know it was an even eighteen hours. I don't know the exacttime. We never paid no attention to that.

[At this point, Taylor went in to the roadhouse for a fewminutes to bid his friends goodbye.]

What killd of tIlouJlJainecrillg alld persOIlaJ equipmellt did youlake along! Gumshoes. (Taylor refers to the shoepacks whichare worn universally in the North. They are waterproof, made ofrobber wilh a leathcr [Op, lacing like a boot, gcnerally around 12inches high.) We put on moccasins when we put on our creepers.We had pole-axes and double-bitted axes {or chopping wood. Westarted Ollt cutting wood with the pole-axe but finally quit it, andtook our climbing poles and creepers and walked right over every­thing and forgot about steps. Carried knapsacks, but we had noth­ing to pack but a little grub, thermos bottle, rope, candles,camera. [Taylor is speaking of the final ascent.]

Whal did you wear! Any speciol mounlai"eering clothes!No, just bib-overalls, shirt, winter underwear, parkee and mitts.

WhaJ did you use for beddillg! Down sleeping-bags. I had awolfskin robe. [Lloyd says: "We had two caribou hides for bedsamI mattresses for four of us. They are the clear quill to put

Billy ra)'lor, Sou"dollgh 28J

on the ice and snow. Pete had a sheepkin sleeping-bag as well,and besides that we had three robes in all for the four of ns-oneof them was not much good-..,nd a piece of c:;mvas to throw overthem all. YOIl want to be sure to keep lhe snow and ice frornthawing underneath you. We had no discomfort in sleeping at all.McGonagall and T each had a pillow, but Bill Taylor was neverknown to carry a pillow; neither was the Swede."1

Whult did )'011 outfit! In Fairbanks.What kind of l'o"kas did )'0" have! Light duck parkees-nOl

furlincd.Do you still have any of the equipmellt left f"o,,~ lire expedi­

tion? I have a pair of creepers. I have 311 alpine pole somewherein Fairbanks. I don't know where it is: Left it with Abe Stines.I don't know where Abe is now. I think he's "outside" some­where.

What do you l'onsidl'r the toughest pa"t of the climb? Fromthe hottom to the Grand Basiu (0 the top of the North Peak. Youcome to pl3Ces like a knife blaue and you can see down for thou­sands of feet below)'ou. It's a steep climb from 11,000 ft., tOO,hut yOll haven't that steep ridge to oolltend with.

It'hy {lid,,'t you fiSC climbing TopesY Didn't need 'cm.What did )'/}u leave at the top! A l4--ft. pole 4 inches at the

top end-dry spruce. We pa~ked it and pulled it up. Where: wecouldn't pack it, we pulled it up on a line. And a little piece orbox-board, about 8 inches square. and we put all the names of theIh"trty on it. (Lloyd says the names of the members of the partyand the dale was written on a board from a candle box and that"over the [ace of this hoard. , . we nailed another board and said,in writing, t1I)OO it, 'Open and look inside. Lloyd Party.''' Lloydr.ays the pole was 4 inches at the bottom, tapering symmelrically to2.5 inches at the top. I

Do )'0" tlli"k it is still tilCTe' (The Lindley-Lick expeditionreported no trace of it when they ascended the Nonh Peak in1932.] Well, it's whel'ever the pole is unless it got knocked off.[That's logic for you! Billy told me they chose the N. Summitto put the ftagpole on because the coast (5.) summit could not beseen from Fairbanks.\

Did you turilc 01l)""iIl9 else! Yes,the d3te of the ascent.What was tlluc at 'lie top' Little pinnacles of rock from -4 to

6 incheS high. Uut generally speaking, it wa~ just a mass of ice.

284 Billy Taylor, SOllrdollgh

Did you build a cairn! Oh yes. we dug down in the ice with alittle axe we had and built a pyramid of 15 inches high and we dugdown in the ice so the pole had a support of about 30 inches and itwas held by four guy-lines-just cotton ropes. We fastened theguy-lines to little spurs of rocks.

How did it feel to stand on the top of the higl11111 ftw"nlai,. ofNorth A"lerica and knUlV the whole continent u.us beneath. you!Well, of course, the altitude made you feel light-like. You hadto watch yourself or your feet would come up quick.

H01.lJ long did y011 stay on tile topr Between two and two anda half hours, if I remember rightly.

Whot utere tile weather conditions like while you were OK thelopr Sunshine on lop but cloudy below us. It shut off a lot ofthe view.

Did yo" recognire allY !'oi"/s! No. At first it was fine andyou could see streaks of timber and the creeks and rivers. But onthe first trip-April 1st-we had to stop four hours from the top.Had to turn back-saw a storm coming. Stormed all that nightand all the next day [This was the day that Lloyd says theyclimbed the South Peak.]

Did you see MI. Forabr' Oh yes, we could see Foraker stick­ing up through the clouds.

How were tI,e weather condilums dltrlng the entire u;~editionr

We had some awful cold weather when we started, and that daywe was up there, it was thirty below. I know it was colder thanhell. Mitts and everything was all ice.

Did "011 let your beard grow to protect your fau' No. [Spits.]Didn't have long to grow anyway.

DKl you hwe many storms' Just the one on the mountain.Oh yes, down on the flats freighlin' in. It was some winter allright (Iown there 1 But not arter we got up onto the mountain.Oh, once or twice up on Muldrow Glacier.

Did you know the other S1f11ll1li, was higher' Looking acrossthe two of them, it didn't seem to have any elevation more, butthey claim it is 300 ft. higher.

Abo'd how far is it to ti,e oilier surmnit! Between 2 and 3miles somewheres.

What uw ti,e reason lhat you did nol climb the South Peak'We set out to climb the: North Peak. That's the toughest peakto cJiml>-the North.

BiUy Taylor, Sourdough 285

When did McGonogaJl a"d Lloyd lear" of your sHuessf [Tay­lor says that only he and Pde Anderson reached the top. Me·Gonagall was outdistaoced around 18,0Cl0 or 19,<XX> ft, while Lloyddid not go beyond the II,OOO-ft. level.] McGonagall was at the11,(xx)"ft. level the night of the 3d. We saw Lloyd the next day­the 4th. That night we camped at the second camp below I1,(xx)

ft. [The Willows.)What did YOIl IUJV8 to eat the ,light aft.r the climb! Beans.

Meat with 'em. And bread. We made it at the lower camp onthe flats. Lloyd was a pretty good baker. He done most of thecooking. Had it frozell and thawed it out when we used it.

How many days did you lake in the deseellt! We made thedescent down to 11,0Cl0 ft. in 18 hours and on the U3Y of the 4thcame down to whel'e Lloyd was campe<i-the Willow Camp.

What were Ihe lIllJltes of YOllr camps! The last camp was at1 I,(x)() ft. The next to the last was about 8 miles from the head ofMuldrow Glncier. I don't know whether wc c,1.llcd it MuldrowCamp or Glacier Camp. 1'\Ie forgotten. IThis was what Lloydcalled the Pothole Camp.] Then Willow Camp. Then belowthat was out on the flats. 'nte willows was the last vegetationabout 4 miles below the McPhee Pass-we called it. Stuck calledit the McGonagali Pass.

Uust then we heard the distant whistle of a train. We bothjumped. It was as dark outside as the night of the murder ir.Macbeth. The remainder of the interview took place on the run.He had to fetch his dogs.)

Did your parhJts leor" of your climbf No, my parents weredead when , left home.

What sttnt" out tKOst slroKgly in yOllr mind cona:rniKg thedimb? I can see the whole route all the way up. It was grand I

Did the climb have ill effects on you? No, none at all.Did you OK the Ilcwspaper story' {Ncw York Times, June

6th, 1910.] No.What is your presellt address' Diamond, Alaska.You are about tlte same age "OW as Lick tooS when lIe climbed

i/. {Lick was forty-seven as to forty-nine lor Taylor. Stuckwas fifty.]

Would you cOlmder diIHbing the mountain agaifl if you had thechalice' Yes, if there was enough mOlley in it. But not just for

286 Billy TayIQ,.., Sourdough

sport. [He put his dogs into a boxcar and climbed on board theEreight.l

"Have you any more questions?" he asked, anxious to help meas much as he could. "No. that's all, thanks," I answered. "I'mcenainly glad to have met you. I had taken it for granted that themembers of the old Sourdough Expedition were dead long ago,Now that you're fixed up, I'll say goodbye and r hope to see youagain." "Goodbye, Norman." "Take good care of the dogs:'"Oh, T will:' he laughed.

The moon broke through the clouds and sailed swiftly acrossthe sky. As Ttook the road back to the bunkhouse Taylor's words,"I can see the whole route. It was grand!" (ang in my cars. J [ewill always carry with him the memory of that magnificent climb,and of himself and Anderson fighting the altitude and cold to placethe American flag on McKinley's northern summit. How appro­priat~ that th~ trunk of a spruce-tree-indigenous all over thenorth-was used as the rude standard on which to raise the starsaud stripes, and how fitting that two sourdoughs still living insight of the moulltain were its first conquerors and the first topoint out the only route by which it has ever been climbed!

No/t.-Readers wi!( be interested in a few remarks made by CharlesMcGooagall of Fairbanks whom 1 met this WI on my way bere. He saysthat hr, as well as Stock, was hardened to Ira~1 with dogs and that the ex­perience stood them in good stead wben they came to grips with the mountain.McGoliagall describes Lloyd as a "good beeT drinker and teller of tallstories." He declares that he himself "got nothillJ out of it but a lot of hardwork." Says that he "didn't want to go in the first place." He maintainsthaI he reached the lap. I did not preu the point nor inquire into details.MeGonagall was a pioneer in earryll1g the mail by dogsled. Some of hiseOCltracts were: over the Trail (Valdez to Fairbanks), from Dawson toCircle, and from Valdez 10 Circle by the Copper River route.

There you hl\'( it-LIo)'d claimed victory for four: McGooagaIl. for three;and Taylor, for two. I will not be satisfied until I C&Il get over kl Nft\ana10 find what Pete Andusoo hu to say. N. B.

BlBUOGIIAl'HY

ThompJOll. W. F., Nttv York T;nu:~, June 6th, 1910.Stuck, H., The Asunt of Dlnafi (Mount McKinley), Charles Scribner's

SoliS; 1915.

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