First Successful Ascent of Mt. Rainier, 1870: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

First Successful Ascent of Mt. Rainier, 1870, credited to Hazard Stevens, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The First Successful Ascent of Mt. Rainier, 1870, by Hazard Stevens. Read by Sue Anderson. Hazard Stevens and P.B. Van Trump, aided by the Indian guide Sluiskin, made the first documented successful ascent of Mt. Rainier on August 17, 1870. Hazard's account of the climb was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1876 and later reprinted with an introduction by Edmond S. Meany in 1916. Sluiskin tried to dissuade the climbers. "Takhoma” (the Indian name for Mt. Rainier) "was an enchanted mountain, inhabited by an evil spirit, who dwelt in a fiery lake on its summit. No human being could ascend it or even attempt its ascent and survive." This prophecy almost proved true. Thinking they could reach the summit and return on the same day, Stevens and Van Trump left behind coats and blankets, only to find themselves trapped overnight in bitter cold. They survived huddled around a volcanic steam vent in an ice cave. "The heat at the orifice was too great to bear for more than an instant, but the steam wet us, the smell of sulfur was nauseating, and the cold was so severe that our clothes, saturated with the steam, froze stiff when turned away from the heated jet." (Summary by Sue Anderson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: First Successful Ascent of Mt. Rainier, 1870
• Author credits: Hazard Stevens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 1:37:10

Catalogue topics

• Mount Rainier National Park
• Glaciers -- Washington (State)
• Rainier, Mount (Wash.)

Track guide

1. 0 - Introduction by Edmond S. Meany — 3:39
2. 1 - Part 1 — 26:44
3. 2 - Part 2 — 39:14
4. 3 - Part 3 — 27:34

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.