Charles and Marion Hessey - Glacier Peak Holiday Home
This 16mm film is in color, with sound, with a running time around 30 minutes. Produced in 1957, before the Glacier Peak Wilderness was established, it opens by describing the region as a battleground between those who would develop the area and those who would preserve it in its natural state. Marion Hessey and nephew Phil Dahl hike near Indian Head Mountain as Chuck Hessey describes the setting. At the time of this film, conservationists were undecided as to whether the region should be designated a wilderness area or a national park.
Yvonne Prater joins the Hesseys for a five-day trip into the Napeequa Valley via Boulder Creek. While strolling around Boulder Pass, Marion describes the importance of wilderness forests for providing pure water and moderating stream runoff. They descend to the Napeequa Valley, cross the river, and hike upstream to the headwaters. There are fine scenes of the Napeequa Glaciers, the Honeycomb Glacier and mountain goats. They scramble up Louis Creek valley for views of pumice slopes and the glaciers of Clark Mountain.
Later the Hesseys visit White Pass via the White River. There are also scenes from the top of Pyramid Mountain to tiny boats on Lake Chelan, 7200 feet below. From Stehekin, they travel to Cascade Pass, the northern boundary of the proposed Glacier Peak Wilderness. They traverse from the pass over Cache Col to Koolaid Lake. Here they encounter Rowland Tabor, doing geological research, and Dale Cole, a member of the second Ptarmigan Traverse party, hiking with his family. A group of Mountaineers arrive, swelling the population at the lake to almost twenty. Chuck notes that more people visited the lake that evening than in all the years since it emerged from the Ice Age.
The following day, the Hesseys hike to the crest near Art's Knoll for views of the Spider and Middle Cascade Glaciers. They watch the Mountaineer party make the first ascent of the north ridge of Mt Formidable (on Labor Day weekend, 1957). Returning to the Cache Glacier and Cascade Pass, they encounter a group of young children roped together on a snowfield, led by Duke Watson and Warren Spickard. Chuck Hessey observes that children such as these--and their children--are the people for whom wilderness in the Glacier Peak region should be preserved.
(Digital transfer of this film was made possible by a grant from The Mountaineers Foundation. Film notes and video clip by Lowell Skoog.)