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Title: The Mountain that was 'God' - Being a Little Book About the Great Peak Which the Indians - Named 'Tacoma' but Which is Officially Called 'Rainier'
Author: Williams, John H.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Mountain that was 'God' - Being a Little Book About the Great Peak Which the Indians - Named 'Tacoma' but Which is Officially Called 'Rainier'" ***
[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected,
all other inconsistencies are as in the original. Author's spelling
has been maintained.
Probable typo:
Pages named by the author are under the format (p. xx).
Original pagination of the book have been kept under the
format {p.xxx}.
Missing page numbers correspond to blank pages.
Page numbers corresponding to full page illustrations
(which have been inserted in the caption of the illustration)
may seem out of order; the illustration having been moved out
of the paragraph.
The illustrations of the page 31 and 89 share their captions
with the illustration above them.]
THE MOUNTAIN
THAT WAS "GOD"
BEING A LITTLE BOOK ABOUT THE GREAT
PEAK WHICH THE INDIANS NAMED "TACOMA"
BUT WHICH IS OFFICIALLY CALLED "RAINIER"
By JOHN H. WILLIAMS
_O, rarest miracle of mountain heights,
Thou hast the sky for thy imperial dome,
And dwell'st among the stars all days and nights,
In the far heavens familiarly at home._
--William Hillis Wynn: "Mt. Tacoma; an Apotheosis."
Second Edition revised and greatly
enlarged, with 190 illustrations,
including eight colored halftones.
TACOMA: JOHN H. WILLIAMS
NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS: LONDON
1911
[Illustration: Copyright, 1905, By Kiser Photo Co.
Great Crevasses in the upper part of Cowlitz Glacier.]
Copyright, 1910, 1911, by John H. Williams.
{p.007}
[Illustration: On the summit of Eagle Rock in winter.
Boys looking over an 800-foot precipice.]
FOREWORD.
Every summer there is demand for illustrated literature describing the
mountain variously called "Rainier" or "Tacoma." Hitherto, we have had
only small collections of pictures, without text, and confined to the
familiar south and southwest sides.
The little book which I now offer aims to show the grandest and most
accessible of our extinct volcanoes from all points of view. Like the
glacial rivers, its text will be found a narrow stream flowing swiftly
amidst great mountain scenery. Its abundant illustrations cover not
only the giants' fairyland south of the peak, but also the equally
stupendous scenes that await the adventurer who penetrates the harder
trails and climbs the greater glaciers of the north and east slopes.
* * * *
The title adopted for the book has reference, of course, to the Indian
nature worship, of which something is said in the opening chapter.
Both the title and a small part of the matter are reprinted from an
article which I contributed last year to the _New York Evening Post_.
Attention is called to the tangle in the names of glaciers and the
need of a definitive nomenclature. As to the name of the Mountain
itself, that famous bone of contention between two cities, I greatly
prefer "Tacoma," one of the several authentic forms of the Indian name
used by different tribes; but I believe that "Tahoma," proposed by the
Rotary Club of Seattle, would be a justifiable compromise, and satisfy
nearly everybody. Its adoption would free our national map from one
more of its meaningless names--the name, in this case, of an
undistinguished foreign naval officer whose only connection with our
history is the fact that he fought against us during the American
Revolution. Incidentally, it would also free me from the need of an
apology for using the hybrid "Rainier-Tacoma"! * * * Many of the
illustrations show wide reaches of wonderful country, and their
details may well be studied with a reading glass.
I am much indebted to the librarians and their courteous assistants at
the Seattle and Tacoma public libraries; also to Prof. Flett for his
interesting account of the flora of the National Park; to Mr. Eugene
Ricksecker, of the United States Engineer Corps, for permission to
reproduce his new map of the Park, now printed for the first time;
and, most of all, to the photographers, both professional and amateur.
In the table of illustrations, credit is given the maker of each
photograph. The book is sent out in the hope of promoting a wider
knowledge of our country's noblest landmark. May it lead many of its
readers to delightful days of recreation and adventure.
Tacoma, June 1, 1910. J. H. W.
Second Edition.--The text has been carefully revised, much new matter
added, and the information for tourists brought to date. The
illustrations have been rearranged, and more {p.008} than fifty new
ones included. Views of the west and south sides, mainly, occupy the
first half of the book, while the later pages carry the reader east
and north from the Nisqually country.
Nearly five thousand negatives and photographs have now been examined
in selecting copy for the engravers. In the table of illustrations I
am glad to place the names of several expert photographers in
Portland, San Francisco, Pasadena and Boston. Their pictures, with
other new ones obtained from photographers already represented, make
this edition much more complete. For the convenience of tourists, as
well as of persons unable to visit the Mountain but wishing to know
its features, I have numbered the landmarks on three of the larger
views, giving a key in the underlines. If this somewhat mars the
beauty of these pictures, it gives them added value as maps of the
areas shown. In renewing my acknowledgments to the photographers, I
must mention especially Mr. Asahel Curtis of Seattle. The help and
counsel of this intrepid and public-spirited mountaineer have been
invaluable. Mr. A. H. Barnes, our Tacoma artist with camera and brush,
whose fine pictures fill many of the following pages, is about to
publish a book of his mountain views, for which I bespeak liberal
patronage.
My readers will join me in welcoming the beautiful verses written for
this edition by a gracious and brilliant woman whose poems have
delighted two generations of her countrymen.
Thanks are also due to Senator Wesley L. Jones, Superintendent E. S.
Hall of the Rainier National Park and the Secretary of the Interior
for official information; to Director George Otis Smith of the U. S.
Geological Survey for such elevations as have thus far been
established by the new survey of the Park; to A. C. McClurg & Co. of
Chicago, for permission to quote from Miss Judson's "_Myths and
Legends of the Pacific Northwest_"; to Mr. Wallace Rice, literary
executor of the late Francis Brooks, for leave to use Mr. Brooks's
fine poem on the Mountain; to the librarians at the Public Library,
the John Crerar Library and the Newberry Library in Chicago, and to
many others who have aided me in obtaining photographs or data for
this edition.
Lovers of the mountains, in all parts of our country, will learn with
regret that Congress, remains apparently indifferent to the
conservation of the Rainier National Park and its complete opening to
the public. At the last session, a small appropriation was asked for
much-needed trails through the forests and to the high interglacial
plateaus, now inaccessible save to the toughest mountaineer; it being
the plan of the government engineers to build such trails on grades
that would permit their ultimate widening into permanent roads. Even
this was denied. The Idaho catastrophe last year again proved the
necessity of trails to the protection of great forests. With the
loggers pushing their operations closer to the Park, its danger calls
for prompt action. Further, American tourists, it is said, annually
spend $200,000,000 abroad, largely to view scenery surpassed in their
own country. But Congress refuses the $50,000 asked, even refuses
$25,000, toward making the grandest of our National Parks safe from
forest fires and accessible to students and lovers of nature!
May 3, 1911.
[Illustration: Winthrop Glacier and St. Elmo Pass, with Ruth Mountain
(the Wedge) on right and Sour-Dough Mountains on left.]
[Illustration: White Glacier and Little Tahoma, with eastern end of
the Tatoosh Range in distance.]
{p.009} CONTENTS.
Page.
The Mountain Speaks. Poem Edna Dean Proctor 15
I. Mount "Big Snow" and Indian
Tradition 17
II. The National Park, its Roads
and its Needs 43
III. The Story of the Mountain 77
IV. The Climbers 113
V. The Flora of the Mountain
Slopes Prof. J. B. Flett 129
Notes 139
ILLUSTRATIONS.
The * indicates engravings made from copyrighted photographs. See
notice under the illustration.
THREE-COLOR HALFTONES.
Title. Photographer. Page.
Spanaway Lake, with reflection
of the Mountain A. H. Barnes. Frontispiece
View from Electron, showing west
side of the Mountain Asahel Curtis 19
View northward from top of
Pinnacle Peak Dr. F. A. Scott 46
Looking Northeast from slope
of Pinnacle Peak Dr. F. A. Scott 47
* Ice Cave, Paradise Glacier A. H. Barnes 73
* Spray Park, from Fay Peak W. P. Romans 92
Crevasse in Carbon Glacier Asahel Curtis 109
North Mowich Glacier and the
Mountain in a storm George V. Caesar 128
ONE-COLOR HALFTONES.
* Great crevasses in upper part
of Cowlitz Glacier Kiser Photo Co. 6
On the summit of Eagle Rock in
winter George V. Caesar 7
Winthrop Glacier and St. Elmo
Pass Asahel Curtis 8
White Glacier and Little
Tahoma Asahel Curtis 9
White River Canyon, from
moraine of White Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 12
Telephoto view from near Electron,
showing plateau on the summit Asahel Curtis 13
View of the Mountain from Fox
Island Charles Bedford 14
* The most kingly of American
mountains Romans Photographic Co. 16
Party of climbers on Winthrop
Glacier Asahel Curtis 17
Ice Terraces, South Tahoma
Glacier Rodney L. Glisan 17
Mineral Lake and the Mountain A. H. Denman 18
Storm King Peak and Mineral
Lake A. H. Barnes 18
Nisqually Canyon Kiser Photo Co. 21
* North Peak, and South Mowich
Glacier A. H. Waite 22
{p.010}
* Basaltic Columns, South
Mowich Glacier A. H. Waite 23
Mountain Goat A. H. Barnes 23
West side of summit, seen from
Tahoma Fork A. H. Barnes 24
Iron and Copper Mountains in
Indian Henry's A. G. Bowles, Jr. 25
Cutting steps up Paradise
Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 25
Great Crag on ridge separating
North and South Tahoma Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 26
The Whistling Marmot Asahel Curtis 26
View from Beljica, showing west
side of the Mountain A. H. Barnes 27
* Mountain Pine E. S. Curtis 28
* Mount Wow, or Goat Mountain E. S. Curtis 28
Rounded Cone of Mt. St Helen's A. H. Barnes 29
* View northward from Simlayshe,
or Eagle Peak Pillsbury Picture Co. 30, 31
* Simlayshe, or Eagle Peak Linkletter Photographic
Co. 30
Exploring Ice Cave, Paradise
Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 31
Junction of North and South
Tahoma Glaciers A. H. Denman 32
Anemones Miss Jessie Kershaw 32
* North Tahoma Glacier A. H. Waite 33
* Snow Lake in Indian Henry's A. H. Barnes 34
A fair Mountaineer Asahel Curtis 35
Indian Henry's, seen from South
Tahoma Glacier A. H. Denman 36
* Southwest side of the Mountain,
seen from Indian Henry's A. H. Barnes 37
Climbing Pinnacle Peak (2) Asahel Curtis 38
A silhouette on Pinnacle Peak Dr. F. A. Scott 39
* Rough Climbing E. S. Curtis 39
Ptarmigan Asahel Curtis 40
The Mountain, from Puyallup
river B. L. Aldrich, Jr. 40
Falls of the Little Mashell
river A. H. Barnes 41
Old Stage Road to Longmire
Springs A. H. Barnes 42
On Pierce County road, passing
Ohop Valley S. C. Lancaster 43
Cowlitz Chimneys S. C. Smith 43
* Old Road near Spanaway A. H. Barnes 44
Automobile Party above Nisqually
Canyon Asahel Curtis 49
Prof. O. D. Allen's Cottage Dr. F. A. Scott 49
"Ghost Trees" Mrs. H. A. Towne 50
Government Road in the Forest
Reserve S. C. Lancaster 51
"Hanging Glacier," an ice fall
above the Cowlitz Asahel Curtis 51
Leaving National Park Inn for
Paradise Linkletter Photo Co. 52
* On the Summit, showing
Columbia's Crest Asahel Curtis 52
Paradise Valley or "Park," and
Tatoosh Mountains A. H. Barnes 53
On Government Road, a mile above
Longmires Linkletter Photo Co. 54
Road near "Gap Point" Linkletter Photo Co. 54
Snout of Nisqually Glacier, and
Road Bridge Paul T. Shaw 55
Pony Trail Bridge across the
Nisqually Dr. H. B. Hinman 55
Road a mile above the Bridge Asahel Curtis 56
On the Pony Trail to Paradise Kiser Photo Co. 56
Sierra Club lunching on Nisqually
Glacier Asahel Curtis 57
A Mountain Celery Mrs. Alexander Thompson 57
Narada Falls, on Paradise River Herbert W. Gleason 58
Washington Torrents, on Paradise
River A. H. Barnes 59
Portion of Paradise Park and
Tatoosh Range A. H. Barnes 59
View of the Mountain from the
Tatoosh, with key to landmarks Herbert W. Gleason 60
Ice Bridge, Stevens Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 61
Tug of War Asahel Curtis 61
* Hiking through Paradise Valley
in Winter J. H. Weer 62
* Tatoosh Range, from Reese's
Camp, in Winter J. H. Weer 62
* Waterfall above Paradise
Valley Photo, W. E. Averett;
Copyright, Asahel Curtis 63
Looking from Stevens Glacier to
Mt. Adams Dr. F. A. Scott 64
Reese's Camp C. E. Cutter 64
Climbing the "Horn" on Unicorn
Peak Asahel Curtis 65
Stevens Canyon in October A. H. Barnes 66
Sluiskin Falls A. H. Barnes 67
Eminent scientist practices the
simple life J. B. Flett 67
* Nisqually Glacier, with its
sources A. H. Barnes 68
Sierra Club on Nisqually Glacier Asahel Curtis 69
* Lost to the World Asahel Curtis 69
"Sunshine" and "Storm" (2) Mrs. H. A. Towne 70
{p.011}
Nisqually Glacier, from top of
Gibraltar Asahel Curtis 71
Measuring the ice flow in
Nisqually Glacier Asahel Curtis 72
* Miss Fay Fuller Exploring a
Crevasse E. S. Curtis 72
Fairy Falls, in Goat Lick
Basin A. H. Barnes 75
* Gibraltar and its Neighbors E. S. Curtis 76
Crossing Carbon Glacier Asahel Curtis 77
* Reflection Lake and the
Mountain E. S. Curtis 77
Looking up from Cowlitz Chimneys
to Gibraltar Asahel Curtis 78
Divide of Paradise and Stevens
Glaciers A. H. Barnes 79
Old Moraine of Stevens Glacier Asahel Curtis 79
Preparing for a night at Camp
Muir Asahel Curtis 80
The Bee Hive Asahel Curtis 80
Mazama Club on Cowlitz Chimneys Kiser Photo Co. 81
Climbing Cowlitz Cleaver to
Gibraltar Asahel Curtis 81
Mazamas rounding Gibraltar Rodney L. Glisan 82
Under the walls of Gibraltar Asahel Curtis 83
One of the bedrooms at Camp Muir A. H. Waite 83
Perilous position on edge of a
great crevasse Charles Bedford 84
Climbing the "Chute," west side
of Gibraltar Asahel Curtis 85
Looking from top of Gibraltar to
the summit A. H. Waite 86
View south from Cowlitz Glacier
to Mt. Adams Charles Bedford 87
One of the modern craters Asahel Curtis 88, 89
Steam Caves in one of the
craters Asahel Curtis 88
North Peak, or "Liberty Cap." A. W. Archer 89
Goat Peaks, glacier summits in
the Cascades Kiser Photo Co 90
Ice-bound lake in Cowlitz Park S. C. Smith 93
Crevasses in Cowlitz Glacier S. C. Smith 93
Crossing a precipitous slope on
White Glacier A. W. Archer 94
* Climbing Goat Peaks in the
Cascades S. C. Smith 94
Looking up White Glacier to
Little Tahoma Dr. F. A. Scott 95
The Mountain seen from top of
Cascade Range S. C. Smith 96
Great Moraine built by Frying-Pan
Glacier on "Goat Island" J. B. Flett 96
Coming around Frying-Pan Glacier,
below Little Tahoma Dr. F. A. Scott 97
Sunrise above the clouds, Camp
Curtis Asahel Curtis 97
Looking up from Snipe Lake,
below Interglacier Dr. F. A. Scott 98
Passing a big Crevasse on
Interglacier Asahel Curtis 98
View North from Mt. Ruth to
Grand Park J. B. Flett 99
Camp on St. Elmo Pass, north side
of the Wedge Asahel Curtis 100
East Face of Mountain, with route
to summit Asahel Curtis 100
Admiral Peter Rainier 101
First picture of the Mountain,
from Vancouver's "Voyage" 101
Climbers on St. Elmo Pass A. W. Archer 102
St. Elmo Pass, from north side A. W. Archer 102
Russell Peak, from Avalanche
Camp Asahel Curtis 103
Avalanche Camp Asahel Curtis 103
Looking up Winthrop Glacier from
Avalanche Camp Asahel Curtis 104
Looking across Winthrop Glacier
to Steamboat Prow Asahel Curtis 104
View south from Sluiskin Mountains
across Moraine Park Asahel Curtis 105
Part of Spray Park George Caesar 106
Climbing the séracs on Winthrop
Glacier Dr. F. A. Scott 107
Ice Pinnacles on the Carbon A. W. Archer 107
Among the Ice Bridges of Carbon
Glacier Asahel Curtis 108
Building Tacoma's electric power
plant on the Nisqually (3) George V. Caesar 111
Hydro-electric plant at Electron 112
Cutting canal to divert White
River to Lake Tapps 112
Mystic Lake, in Moraine Park Asahel Curtis 113
Glacier Table on Winthrop
Glacier Asahel Curtis 113
Carbon River and Mother
Mountains Dr. F. A. Scott 114
* Oldest and Youngest of the
Climbers C. E. Cutter 115
* P. B. Van Trump on his old
Camp Ground E. S. Curtis 115
Lower Spray Park, with Mother
Mountains beyond Asahel Curtis 116
* John Muir, President of the
Sierra Club J. Edward B. Greene 116
Coasting in Moraine Park Asahel Curtis 117
Sunset on Crater Lake George V. Caesar 117
* Amphitheatre of Carbon Glacier Asahel Curtis 118
* Avalanche falling on Willis
Wall Photo, Lea Bronson;
Copyright, P. V. Caesar 119
{p.012}
* Birth of Carbon River A. H. Waite 120
The Mountaineers building trail
on Carbon Moraine Asahel Curtis 121
The Mountaineers lunching in a
crevasse Asahel Curtis 121
Looking southeast from Mt. Rose George V. Caesar 122
Looking south from Mt. Rose,
across Crater Lake George V. Caesar 123
* Looking up North Mowich Valley Asahel Curtis 124
* Spray Falls Asahel Curtis 125
* A Rescue from a Crevasse E. S. Curtis 126
Returning from the Summit Asahel Curtis 126
* View across Moraine Park and
Carbon Glacier to Mother
Mountains Asahel Curtis 129
Senecio Mrs. Alexander Thompson 129
A 14-foot Fir, near Mineral Lake A. H. Barnes 130
Indian Pipe J. B. Flett 131
Floral Carpet in Indian Henry's
Park A. H. Barnes 131
Mosses and Ferns in the Forest
Reserve Charles Bedford 132
A Bank of White Heather Asahel Curtis 133
Hellebore Mrs. Alexander Thompson 133
Alpine Hemlock and Mountain
Lilies Mrs. H. A. Towne 134
Mountain Asters A. H. Barnes 134
Studying the Phlox J. B. Flett 135
Squaw Grass, or Mountain Lily Miss Jessie Kershaw 135
Avalanche Lilies Asahel Curtis 136
* Moraine Park, Sluiskin
Mountains and Mystic Lake Asahel Curtis 136
Sunrise in Indian Henry's A. H. Barnes 137
Anemone Seed Pods Asahel Curtis 138
Wind-swept Trees on North Side George V. Caesar 139
Lupines Herbert W. Gleason 139
* The Mountain, seen from Green
River Hot Springs C. E. Cutter 140
Glacial debris on lower Winthrop Asahel Curtis 142
An Alpine Climbers' Cabin From Whymper's "Chamonix
and Mt. Blanc" 144
[Illustration: White River Canyon, from the terminal moraine of White
Glacier. A fine example of glacial sculpture. The river seen in the
distance is 2,000 feet below the plateau through which the glacier has
carved this valley.]
[Illustration {p.013}: Telephoto view from near Electron, 20 miles,
showing vast summit plateau left when the Mountain blew its head off.
1. Crater Peak, built by the two small, modern craters. 2. South Peak,
or Peak Success. 3. North Peak, or Liberty Cap. 4. North Tahoma
Glacier. 5. Puyallup Glacier. 6. South Mowich Glacier. 7.
North Mowich Glacier. 8. Snow Cap above Carbon Glacier. The summit
peaks (1, 2 and 3) form a triangle, each side of which is two miles or
more in length.]
[Illustration {p.014}: View of the Mountain from Fox Island,
forty-two miles northwest, with part of Puget Sound in the
foreground.]
{p.015} THE MOUNTAIN SPEAKS.
I am Tacoma, Monarch of the Coast!
Uncounted ages heaped my shining snows;
The sun by day, by night the starry host,
Crown me with splendor; every breeze that blows
Wafts incense to my altars; never wanes
The glory my adoring children boast,
For one with sun and sea Tacoma reigns.
Tacoma--the Great Snow Peak--mighty name
My dusky tribes revered when time was young!
Their god was I in avalanche and flame--
In grove and mead and songs my rivers sung,
As blithe they ran to make the valleys fair--
Their Shrine of Peace where no avenger came
To vex Tacoma, lord of earth and air.
Ah! when at morn above the mists I tower
And see my cities gleam by slope and strand,
What joy have I in this transcendent dower--
The strength and beauty of my sea-girt land
That holds the future royally in fee!
And lest some danger, undescried, should lower,
From my far height I watch o'er wave and lea.
And cloudless eves when calm in heaven I rest,
All rose-bloom with a glow of paradise,
And through my firs the balm-wind of the west,
Blown over ocean islands, softly sighs,
While placid lakes my radiant image frame--
And know my worshippers, in loving quest,
Will mark my brow and fond lips breathe my name:
Enraptured from my valleys to my snows,
I charm my glow to crimson--soothe to gray;
And when the encircling shadow deeper grows,
Poise, a lone cloud, beside the starry way.
Then, while my realm is hushed from steep to shore,
I yield my grandeur to divine repose,
And know Tacoma reigns forevermore!
South Framingham, Mass.
March, 1911. Edna Dean Proctor
[Illustration {p.016}: Copyright, 1906, By Romans Photographic Co.
The most kingly of American mountains, seen from beautiful Lake
Washington, Seattle, distance sixty miles.]
{p.017}
[Illustration: A party of climbers on Winthrop Glacier.]
THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS "GOD."
I.
MOUNT "BIG SNOW" AND INDIAN TRADITION.
Long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood,
Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree;
At last upon a barren hill we stood,
And, lo, above loomed Majesty.
--_Herbert Bashford: "Mount Rainier."_
The great Mountain fascinates us by its diversity. It is an
inspiration and yet a riddle to all who are drawn to the mysterious or
who love the sublime. Every view which the breaking clouds vouchsafe
to us is a surprise. It never becomes commonplace, save to the
commonplace.
[Illustration: Ice Terraces on South Tahoma Glacier. These vast steps
are often seen where a glacier moves down a steep and irregular
slope.]
Old Virgil's gibe at mankind's better half--"varium et mutabile semper
femina"--might have been written of this fickle shape of rock and ice
and vapor. One tries vainly, year after year, to define it in his own
mind. The daily, hourly change of distance, size and aspect, tricks
which the Indian's mountain {p.018} god plays with the puny
creatures swarming more and more about his foot; his days of frank
neighborliness, his swift transformations from smiles to anger, his
fits of sullenness and withdrawal, all baffle study. Even though we
live at its base, it is impossible to say we know the Mountain, so
various are the spells the sun casts over this huge dome which it is
slowly chiseling away with its tools of ice, and which, in coming
centuries, it will level with the plain.
[Illustration: Mineral Lake and the Mountain. Distance, eighteen
miles.]
We are lovers of the water as well as the hills, out here in this
northwestern corner of the Republic. We spend many days--and should
spend more--in cruising among the hidden bays and park-like islands
which make Puget Sound the most interesting body of water in America.
We grow a bit boastful about the lakes that cluster around our cities.
Nowhere better than from sea level, or from the lakes raised but
little above it, does one realize the bulk, the dominance, and yet the
grace, of this noble peak. Its impressiveness, indeed, arises in part
from the fact that it is one of the few great volcanic mountains whose
entire height may be seen from tide level. Many of us can recall views
of it from Lake Washington at Seattle, or from American or Spanaway
Lake at Tacoma, or from the Sound, which will always haunt the memory.
[Illustration: Storm King Peak and Mineral Lake, viewed from near
Mineral Lake Inn.]
Early one evening, last summer, I went with a friend to Point
Defiance, Tacoma's fine park at the {p.021} end of the promontory
on which the city is built. We drank in refreshment from the picture
there unrolled of broad channels and evergreen shores. As sunset
approached, we watched the western clouds building range upon range of
golden mountains above the black, Alp-like crags of the Olympics.
Then, entering a small boat, we rowed far out northward into the
Sound. Overhead, and about us, the scenes of the great panorama were
swiftly shifted. The western sky became a conflagration. Twilight
settled upon the bay. The lights of the distant town came out, one by
one, and those of the big smelter, near by, grew brilliant. No Turner
ever dreamed so glorious a composition of sunlight and shade. But we
were held by one vision.
[Illustration {p.019}: View from Electron, showing west side of the
mountain, with a vast intervening country of forested ranges and deep
canyons.]
{p.021}
[Illustration: Nisqually Canyon.
... "Where the mountain wall
Is piled to heaven, and through the narrow rift
Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet
Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar:
Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind
Comes burdened with the everlasting moan
Of forests and far-off waterfalls."--Whittier.]
Yonder, in the southeast, towering above the lower shadows of harbor
and hills, rose a vast pyramid of soft flame. The setting sun had
thrown a mantle of rose pink over the ice of the glaciers and the
great cleavers of rock which buttress the mighty dome. The rounded
summit was warm with beautiful orange light. Soon the colors upon its
slope changed to deeper reds, and then to amethyst, and {p.023}
violet, and pearl gray. The sun-forsaken ranges below fell away to
dark neutral tints. But the fires upon the crest burned on, deepening
from gold to burnished copper, a colossal beacon flaming high against
the sunset purple of the eastern skies. Finally, even this great light
paled to a ghostly white, as the supporting foundation of mountain
ridges dropped into the darkness of the long northern twilight, until
the snowy summit seemed no longer a part of earth, but a veil of
uncanny mist, caught up by the winds from the Pacific and floating far
above the black sky-line of the solid Cascades, that
* * * heaven-sustaining bulwark, reared
Between the East and West.
[Illustration {p.022}: Copyright, 1900, By A. H. Waite. North Peak,
or Liberty Cap, and South Mowich Glacier in storm, seen from an
altitude of 6,000 feet, on ridge between South Mowich and Puyallup
Glaciers. The glacier, 2,000 feet below, is nearly half a mile wide.
Note the tremendous wall of ice in which it ends.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1900, By A. H. Waite. Basaltic Columns, part
of the "Colonnade" on south side of South Mowich Glacier. These
curious six-sided columns of volcanic rock are similar to those
bordering the Cowlitz Glacier.]
[Illustration: Mountain Goat, an accidental snap-shot of the fleet and
wary Mazama; godfather of the famous Portland mountain club.]
And when even that apparition had faded, and the Mountain appeared
only as an uncertain bulk shadowed upon the night, then came the
miracle. Gradually, the east, beyond the great hills, showed a faint
silver glow. Silhouetted against this dim background, the profile of
the peak grew definite. With no other warning, suddenly from its
summit the full moon shot forth, huge, majestic and gracious, flooding
the lower world with brightness. Clouds and mountain ranges alike
shone with its glory. But the great peak loomed blacker and more
sullen. Only, on its head, the wide crown of snow gleamed white under
the cold rays of the moon.
[Illustration {p.024}: West Side of the summit, seen from Tahoma Fork
of the Nisqually, on road to Longmire Springs. Note the whiteness of
the glacial water. This stream is fed by the united Tahoma glaciers.
See pp. 32 and 37.]
{p.025}
[Illustration: Iron and Copper Mountains (right) in Indian Henry's.
The top of Pyramid Peak shows in the saddle beyond with Peak Success
towering far above.]
No wonder that this mountain of changing moods, overtopping every
other eminence in the Northwest, answered the idea of God to the
simple, imaginative mind of the Indians who hunted in the forest on
its slopes or fished in the waters of Whulge that ebbed and flowed at
its base. Primitive peoples in every land have deified superlative
manifestations of nature--the sun, the wind, great rivers, and
waterfalls, the high mountains. By all the tribes within sight of its
summit, this pre-eminent peak, variously called by them Tacoma
(Tach-ho´ma), Tahoma or Tacob, as who should say "The Great Snow," was
deemed a power to be feared and conciliated. Even when the
missionaries taught them a better faith, they continued to hold the
Mountain in superstitious reverence--an awe that still has power to
silence their "civilized" and very unromantic descendants.
[Illustration: Cutting steps up Paradise Glacier.]
The Puget Sound tribes, with the Yakimas, Klickitats and others living
just beyond the Cascades, had substantially the same language and
beliefs, though differing much in physical and mental type. {p.026}
East of the range, they lived by the chase. They were great horsemen
and famous runners, a breed of lithe, upstanding, competent men, as
keen of wit as they were stately in appearance. These were "the noble
Red Men" of tradition. Fennimore Cooper might have found many a hero
worthy of his pen among the savages inhabiting the fertile valley of
the Columbia, which we now call the Inland Empire. But here on the
Coast were the "Digger" tribes, who subsisted chiefly by spearing
salmon and digging clams. Their stooped figures, flat faces, downcast
eyes and low mentality reflected the life they led. Contrasting their
heavy bodies with their feeble legs, which grew shorter with disuse, a
Tacoma humorist last summer gravely proved to a party of English
visitors that in a few generations more, had not the white man seized
their fishing grounds, the squatting Siwashes would have had no legs
at all!
[Illustration: Great Crag on the ridge separating the North and South
Tahoma Glaciers, with Tahoma Fork of the Nisqually visible several
miles below. This rock is seen right of center on page 27.]
[Illustration: The Marmot, whose shrill whistle is often heard among
the crags.]
Stolid and uninspired as he seemed to the whites, the Indian of the
Sound was not without his touch of poetry. He had that imaginative
curiosity which marked the native {p.028} American everywhere. He
was ever peering into the causes of things, and seeing the
supernatural in the world around him.[1]
[Footnote 1: Among those who have studied the Puget
Sound Indians most sympathetically is the Rev. Mr.
Hylebos of Tacoma. He came to the Northwest in 1870,
when the census gave Tacoma a white population of
seventy-three. In those days, says Father Hylebos, the
Tacoma tideflats, now filled in for mills and railway
terminals, were covered each autumn with the canoes of
Indians spearing salmon. It was no uncommon thing to see
at one time on Commencement Bay 1,800 fishermen. This
veteran worker among the "Siwashes" (French
"_sauvages_") first told me the myths that hallowed the
Mountain for every native, and the true meaning of the
beautiful Indian word "Tacoma." He knew well all the
leaders of the generation before the railways: Sluiskin,
the Klickitat chief who guided Stevens and Van Trump up
to the snow-line in 1870; Stanup, chief of the
Puyallups; Kiskax, head of the Cowlitz tribe; Angeline,
the famous daughter of Chief Seattle, godfather of the
city of that name, and many others.]
[Illustration {p.027}: View from Beljica, showing the deeply indented
west side of the Mountain. Beginning at extreme right, the glaciers
are, successively: Kautz, South Tahoma, North Tahoma and Puyallup. In
the left foreground is the canyon of Tahoma Fork of the Nisqually,
which is fed by the Tahoma glaciers.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Mountain Pine, one of
the last outposts of the forest below the line of eternal snow.]
To the great Snow Mountain the Indians made frequent pilgrimages, for
they thought this king of the primeval wild a divinity to be reckoned
with. They dreaded its anger, seen in the storms about its head, the
thunder of its avalanches, and the volcanic flashes of which their
traditions told. They courted its favor, symbolized in the wild
flowers that bloomed on its slope, and the tall grass that fed the
mowich, or deer.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Mount Wow, or Goat
Mountain, above Mesler's.]
As they ascended the vast ridges, the grandeur about them spoke of the
mountain god. There were groves of trees he must have planted, so
orderly were they set out. The lakes of the lofty valleys seemed
calmer than those on the prairies below, the foliage brighter, the
ferns taller and more graceful. The song of the waterfalls here was
sweeter than the music of the tamahnawas men, their Indian sorcerers.
The many small meadows close to the snow-line, carpeted in deepest
green and spread with flowers, were the gardens of the divinity,
tended by his superhuman agents. Strange as it may seem, the
nature-worship of the silent Red Man had many points in common with
that of the imaginative, volatile Greek, who {p.030} peopled his
mountains with immortals; and no wood in ancient Greece was ever
thronged with hamadryads more real than the little gods whom the
Indian saw in the forests watered by streams from Tacoma's glaciers.
[Illustration {p.029}: Rounded Cone of Mt. St. Helens, seen from
Indian Henry's, forty-five miles away.]
[Illustration: View northward in early summer from Eagle Peak, at
western end of the Tatoosh. Gibraltar Rock and Little Tahoma break the
eastern sky-line. On the extreme right lies Paradise Valley, still deep
in snow, with the canyon of Paradise River below it. Next is seen the
Nisqually Glacier, with Nisqually River issuing from its snout. Then
come Van Trump Glacier (an "interglacier"), and the big Kautz Glacier,
dropping into its own deep canyon. Beyond the Kautz, Pyramid Peak and
Iron and Copper Mountains rise on the Indian Henry plateau. The Tahoma
Glaciers close the view westward.]
[Illustration {p.031}: Copyright, 1907, By Pillsbury Picture Co.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Linkletter Photo. CO. Eagle Peak
(Indian name, Simlayshe) at west end of the Tatoosh. Altitude about
6,000 feet. A pony trail three miles long leads up from the Inn.]
Countless snows had fallen since the mountain god created and
beautified this home of his, when one day he grew angry, and in his
wrath showed terrible tongues of fire. Thus he ignited an immense fir
forest on the south side of the peak. When his anger subsided, the
flames passed, and the land they left bare became covered with blue
grass and wild flowers--a great sunny country where, before, the dark
forest had been. Borrowing a word from the French _coureurs des bois_
who came with the Hudson's Bay Company, the later Indians sometimes
called this region "the Big Brulé"; and to this day some Americans
call it the same. But for the Big Brulé the Indians had, from ancient
times, another name, connected with their ideas of religion. It was
their Saghalie Illahe, the "Land of Peace," Heaven. Our name,
"Paradise Valley," {p.031} given to the beautiful open vale on the
south slope of the Mountain, is an English equivalent.
Here was the same bar to violence which religion has erected in many
lands. The Hebrews had their "Cities of Refuge." The pagan ancients
made every altar an asylum. Mediæval Christianity constituted all its
churches sanctuaries. Thus, in lawless ages, the hand of vengeance was
stayed, and the weak were protected.
[Illustration: Exploring an Ice Cave, Paradise Glacier.]
So, too, the Indian tradition ordained this home of rest and refuge.
Indian custom was an eye for an eye, but on gaining this mountain
haven the pursued was safe from his pursuer, the slayer might not be
touched by his victim's kindred. When he crossed its border, the
warrior laid down his arms. Criminals and cowards, too, were often
sent here by the chiefs to do penance.
[Illustration: Junction of North and South Tahoma Glaciers, viewed
from Indian Henry's. The main ice stream thus formed, seen in the
foreground, feeds Tahoma Fork of the Nisqually River. The Northern
part of North Tahoma Glacier, seen in the distance beyond the wedge of
rocks, feeds a tributary of the Puyallup.]
The mountain divinity, with his under-gods, figures in much of the
Siwash {p.032} folklore, and the "Land of Peace" is often heard of.
It is through such typical Indian legends as that of Miser, the greedy
hiaqua hunter, that we learn how large a place the great Mountain
filled in the thought of the aborigines.
[Illustration: Anemones, a familiar mountain flower.]
This myth also explains why no Red Man could ever be persuaded to an
ascent beyond the snow line. As to the Greek, so to the Indian the
great peaks were sacred. The flames of an eruption, the fall of an
avalanche, told of the wrath of the mountain god. The clouds that
wrapped the summit of Tacoma spelled mystery and peril. Even so shrewd
and intelligent a Siwash as Sluiskin, with all his keenness for
"Boston chikamin," the white man's money, refused to accompany Stevens
and Van Trump in the first ascent, in 1870; indeed, he gave them up as
doomed, and bewailed their certain fate when they defied the
Mountain's wrath and started for the summit in spite of his warnings.
[Illustration {p.033}: Copyright 1910, A. H. WAITE. North Tahoma
Glacier, flowing out of the huge cleft in the west side, between North
and South Peaks. A great rock wedge splits the glacier, turning part
of the ice stream northward into the Puyallup, while the other part,
on the right pours down to join South Tahoma Glacier. Note how the
promontory of rock in the foreground has been rounded and polished by
the ice. Compare this view with pages 32 and 37.]
[Illustration {p.034}: Snow Lake in Indian Henry's, surrounded by
Alpine firs, which grow close to the snow line. Elevation about 6,000
feet.]
The hero of the Hiaqua Myth is the Indian {p.035} Rip Van
Winkle.[2] He dwelt at the foot of Tacoma, and, like Irving's worthy,
he was a mighty hunter and fisherman. He knew the secret pools where
fish could always be found, and the dark places in the forest, where
the elk hid when snows were deepest. But for these things Miser cared
not. His lust was all for hiaqua, the Indian shell money.
[Footnote 2: This legend is well told in "Myths and
Legends of the Pacific Northwest," a delightful book by
Katharine B. Judson of the Seattle Public Library
(Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Co.). See also Prof. W. D.
Lyman's papers in "Mazama" Vol. 2, and "The
Mountaineer," Vol. 2; and Winthrop's "Canoe and
Saddle."]
[Illustration: A fair Mountaineer at the timber line. Note her
equipment, including shoe calks.]
Now, Miser's totem was Moosmoos, the elk divinity. So Miser tried,
even while hunting the elk, to talk with them, in order to learn where
hiaqua might be found. One night Moosmoos persuaded him that on top of
the Mountain he would find great store of it. Making him two elk-horn
picks, and filling his ikta with dried salmon and kinnikinnick, he
climbed in two nights and a day to the summit. Here he found three big
rocks, one like a camas root, one like a salmon's head, the third like
his friendly Moosmoos. Miser saw that Moosmoos had told him truly.
[Illustration {p.036}: View of Indian Henry's Hunting Ground from a
point on South Tahoma Glacier, looking across to Copper and Iron
Mountains, with Mt. St. Helens above the clouds far beyond. This
famous upland plateau or "park" gets its name from the fact that it
was, years ago, the favorite haunt of a celebrated Indian hunter.]
[Illustration {p.037}: Southwest side of the Mountain as seen from
Indian Henry's, showing North and South Tahoma Glaciers meeting in
foreground, and Kautz Glacier on extreme right.]
After long digging, Miser overturned the rock that was like the elk's
head. Beneath lay a vast quantity of hiaqua. This he strung on elk's
sinews--enough of it to make him the richest of men. Then he hurried
to depart. But he left no thank-offering to the tanahnawas powers.
Thereupon the whole earth shook with a mighty convulsion, and the
mountain shot forth terrible fires, which melted the snows and poured
floods down the slopes, where they were turned to ice again by the
breath of the storm-god. And above the roar of torrents and the crash
of thunder, {p.038} Miser heard the voices of all the tamahnawas,
hissing: "Hiaqua! Hiaqua! Ha, ha, Hiaqua!"
[Illustration: Climbing Pinnacle Peak, in the Tatoosh. Elevation 6,500
feet. The route leads up from Paradise Valley, over the steep snow
field shown in the lower view, and thence by a difficult trail to the
summit.]
Panic-stricken at the results of his greed, Miser threw down his load
of treasure to propitiate the angry tamahnawas. But the storm-god
hurled him down the mountain side. Miser fell into a deep sleep. Many,
many snows after, he awoke to find himself far from the summit, in a
pleasant country of beautiful meadows carpeted with flowers, abounding
in camas roots, and musical with the song of birds. He had grown very
old, with white hair falling to his shoulders. His ikta was empty,
save for a few dried leaves. Recognizing the scene about him as
Saghalie Illahe, he sought his old tent. It was where he had left it.
There, too, was his klootchman, or wife, grown old, like himself.
Thirty snows, she said, she had awaited his return. Back they went to
their {p.039} home on the bank of the Cowlitz, where he became a
famous tamahnawas man, and spent the rest of his days in honor, for
his tribesmen recognized that the aged Indian's heart had been
marvelously softened and his mind enriched by his experience upon the
peak. He had lost his love for hiaqua.
[Illustration: A silhouette on Pinnacle Peak, with Paradise Valley and
the Nisqually Glacier below.]
Among the familiar myths of the Mountain was one of a great flood, not
unlike that of Noah. I quote Miss Judson's version:
WHY THERE ARE NO SNAKES ON TAKHOMA.
A long, long time ago, Tyhce Sahale became angry with his people.
Sahale ordered a medicine man to take his bow and arrow and shoot
into the cloud which hung low over Takhoma. The medicine man shot
the arrow, and it stuck fast in the cloud. Then he shot another
into the lower end of the first. Then he shot another into the
lower end of the second. He shot arrows until he had made a chain
which reached from the cloud to the earth. The medicine man told
his klootchman and his children to climb up the arrow trail. Then
he told the good animals to climb up the arrow trail. Then the
medicine man climbed up himself. Just as he was climbing into the
cloud, he looked back. A long line of bad animals and snakes were
also climbing up the arrow trail. Therefore the medicine man
broke the chain of arrows. Thus the snakes and bad animals fell
down on the mountain side. Then at once it began to rain. It
rained until all the land was flooded. Water reached even to the
snow line of Takhoma. When all the bad animals and snakes were
drowned, it stopped raining. After a while the waters sank again.
Then the medicine man and his klootchman and the children climbed
out of the cloud and came down the mountain side. The good
animals also climbed out of the cloud. Thus there are now no
snakes or bad animals on Takhoma.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, by E. S. Curtis. Rough Climbing, an
illustration of perils encountered in crossing the glaciers.]
Childish and fantastic as they seem to our wise age, such legends show
the Northwestern Indian struggling to interpret the world about him.
Like savages everywhere, he peopled the unknown with spirits good and
bad, and mingled his conception of a beneficent deity with his ideas
of the evil one. Symbolism pervaded his crude but very positive mind.
Ever by his side the old Siwash felt the Power that dwelt on Tacoma,
protecting and aiding him, or leading him to destruction. Knowing
{p.040} nothing of true worship, his primitive intelligence could
imagine God only in things either the most beautiful or the most
terrifying; and the more we know the Mountain, the more easily we
shall understand why he deemed the majestic peak a factor of his
destiny--an infinite force that could, at will, bless or destroy. For
to us, too, though we have no illusions as to its supernatural powers,
the majestic peak may bring a message. Before me is a letter from an
inspiring New England writer, who has well earned the right to
appraise life's values. "I saw the great Mountain three years ago,"
she says; "would that it might ever be my lot to see it again! I love
to dream of its glory, and its vast whiteness is a moral force in my
life."
Perpetual
And snowy tabernacle of the land,
While purples at thy base this peaceful sea,
And all thy hither slopes in evening bathe,
I hear soft twilight voices calling down
From all thy summits unto prayer and love.
--_Francis Brooks: "Mt. Rainier."_
[Illustration: Ptarmigan, the Grouse of the ice-fields. Unlike its
neighbor, the Mountain Goat, this bird is tame, and may sometimes be
caught by hand. In winter its plumage turns from brown to white.]
[Illustration: The Mountain, seen from Puyallup River, near Tacoma.]
[Illustration {p.041}: Falls of the Little Mashell River, near
Eatonville and the road to the Mountain.]
[Illustration {p.042}: Old Stage Road to Longmire Springs and the
National Park Inn, showing the tall, clear trunks of the giant firs.]
{p.043}
[Illustration: On Pierce County's splendid scenic road to the
Mountain. Passing Ohop Valley.]
II.
THE NATIONAL PARK, ITS ROADS AND ITS NEEDS.
There are plenty of higher mountains, but it is the decided
isolation--the absolute standing alone in full majesty of its own
mightiness--that forms the attraction of Rainier. * * * It is no
squatting giant, perched on the shoulders of other mountains.
From Puget Sound, it is a sight for the gods, and one feels in
the presence of the gods.--_Paul Fountain: "The Seven Eaglets of
the West"_ (London, 1905).
The first explorers to climb the Mountain, forty years ago, were
compelled to make their way from Puget Sound through the dense growths
of one of the world's greatest forests, over lofty ridges and deep
canyons, and across perilous glacial torrents. The hardships of a
journey to the timber line were more formidable than the difficulties
encountered above it.
[Illustration: Cowlitz Chimneys, seen from basin below Frying-Pan
Glacier.]
Even from the East the first railroad to the Coast had just reached
San Francisco. Thence the traveler came north to the Sound by boat.
The now busy cities of Seattle and Tacoma were, one, an ambitious
village of 1,107 inhabitants; the other, a sawmill, with seventy
persons living around it. They were frontier settlements, outposts of
{p.044} civilization; but civilization paid little attention to them
and their great Mountain, until the railways, some years later, began
to connect them with the big world of people and markets beyond the
Rockies.
[Illustration: On the way out from Tacoma, over the partly wooded
prairie, the automobilist sees many scenes like this old road near
Spanaway Lake.]
How different the case to-day! Six transcontinental railroads now
deliver their trains in the Puget Sound cities. These are: The
Northern Pacific, which was the first trunk line to reach the Sound;
the Great Northern; the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; the Chicago,
Milwaukee & Puget Sound; the Oregon-Washington (Union Pacific), and
the Canadian Pacific. A seventh, the North Coast, is planned.
[Illustration {p.046}: View Northward from top of Pinnacle Peak in
the Tatoosh range to Paradise Valley, Nisqually Glacier and Gibraltar
Rock, eight miles away.]
[Illustration {p.047}: Looking Northeast from slope of Pinnacle Peak,
across Paradise, Stevens, Cowlitz and Frying Pan Glaciers. These two
views form virtually a panorama.]
Arriving in Seattle or Tacoma, the traveler has his choice of quick
and enjoyable routes to the Mountain. He may go by automobile, leaving
either city in the morning. After traveling one of the best and most
interesting roads in the country--the only one, in fact, to reach a
glacier--he may take luncheon at noon six thousand feet higher, in
Paradise Park, overlooking great glaciers and close to the line of
eternal snow. Or he may go by the comfortable trains of the Tacoma
Eastern (Milwaukee system) to Ashford, fifty-five miles from Tacoma,
and then by automobile stages, over a picturesque portion of the fine
highway just mentioned, to the National Park Inn at Longmire Springs
(altitude 2,762 feet). Lunching there, he may then go on, by coach
over the new government road, or on horseback over one of the most
inviting mountain trails in America, or afoot, as many prefer. Thus he
{p.049} gains Paradise Park and its far-reaching observation
point, Camp of the Clouds (elevation, 5,800 feet). From the Inn, too,
another romantic bridle path leads to Indian Henry's famous Hunting
Ground, equally convenient as a base of adventure.
[Illustration: Automobile Party above Nisqually Canyon, Pierce County
Road to the Mountain.]
[Illustration: Prof. O. D. Allen's cottage, in the Forest Reserve,
where the former Yale professor has for years studied the flora of the
Mountain.]
Whether the visitor goes to the Mountain by train or by automobile,
his choice will be a happy one. For either route leads through a
country of uncommon charm. Each of them, too, will carry the visitor
up from the Sound to the great and beautiful region on the southern
slopes which includes the Tahoma, Kautz, Nisqually, Paradise and
Stevens canyons, with their glaciers and the wonderful upland plateaus
or "parks" that lie between.
[Illustration: "Ghost Trees" in Indian Henry's. These white stalks
tell of fires set by careless visitors.]
Here let him stay a day or a month. Every moment of his time will be
crowded with new experiences and packed with enjoyment. For here is
sport to last for many months. He may content himself with a day spent
in coasting down a steep snow-field in midsummer, snowballing his
companions, and climbing Alta Vista to look down on the big Nisqually
glacier in the deep bed which it has {p.050} carved for itself, and
up its steep slopes to its névé field on the summit. Or he may explore
this whole region at his leisure. He may climb the hard mountain
trails that radiate from Longmires and Paradise. He may work up over
the lower glaciers, studying their crevasses, ice caves and flow. He
will want to ascend some of the tempting crags of the ragged Tatoosh,
for the panorama of ice-capped peaks and dark, forested ranges which
is there unfolded. After a week or two of such "trying-out," to
develop wind and harden muscle, he may even scale the great Mountain
itself under the safe lead of experienced guides. He may wander at
will over the vast platform left by a prehistoric explosion which
truncated the cone, and perhaps spend a night of sensational novelty
(and discomfort) in a big steam cave, under the snow, inside a dead
crater.
The south side has the advantage of offering the wildest alpine sport
in combination with a well-appointed hotel as a base of operations.
Hence the majority of visitors know only that side. Everybody should
know it, too, for there is not a nobler playground anywhere; but
should also know that it is by no means the only side to see.
One may, of course, work around from the Nisqually canyon and
Paradise, east or west, to the other glaciers and "parks." It is quite
practicable, if not easy, to make the trip eastward from Camp of the
Clouds, crossing Paradise, Stevens and Cowlitz glaciers, and thus to
reach the huge White glacier on the east side and Winthrop and Carbon
glaciers on the north. Every summer sees more and more visitors making
this wonderful journey.
But the usual way to reach the great north side, especially for
parties which carry camp equipment, is by a Northern Pacific train
over the Carbonado branch to Fairfax. This is on Carbon river, five
miles from the northwest corner of the National Park. Thence the
traveler will go by horse or afoot, over a safe mountain trail, to
Spray Park, the fascinating region between Carbon and North Mowich
{p.051} glaciers. Standing here, on such an eminence as Fay Peak or
Eagle Cliff, he may have views of the Mountain in its finest aspects
that will a thousand times repay the labor of attainment.
[Illustration: Government Road in the Forest Reserve.]
[Illustration: "Hanging Glacier," or ice fall, above Cowlitz Glacier.]
A visit to this less known but no less interesting side involves the
necessity of packing an outfit. But arrangements for horses and
packers are easily made, and each year an increasing number of parties
make Spray Park their headquarters, spending, if they are wise, at
least a week in this wide region of flowering alpine valleys and
commanding heights. From there they go south, over the west-side
glaciers, or east, across the Carbon and through the great White river
country. They camp on the south side of the Sluiskin mountains, in
Moraine Park, and there have ready access to Carbon and Winthrop
glaciers, with splendid views of the vast precipices that form the
north face of the Mountain. Thence they climb east and south over the
Winthrop and White glaciers. They visit the beautiful Grand Park and
Summerland, and either make the ascent to the summit from "Steamboat
Prow" on the "Wedge," over the long ice slope of the White glacier, or
continue around to the Paradise country and Longmire Springs.
{p.052}
[Illustration: Leaving the National Park Inn at Longmire Springs for
Paradise Park.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. On the Summit,
showing Columbia's Crest, the great mound of snow that has, most
curiously, formed on this wide, wind-swept platform. This, the actual
top of the Mountain, is 14,363 feet above sea level.]
The west side has been less visited than the others, but there is a
trail from the North Mowich to the Nisqually, and from this
adventurous explorers reach North and South Mowich and Puyallup
glaciers. No one has yet climbed the Mountain over those glaciers, or
from the north side. A view from any of the trails will explain why.
The great rock spines are more precipitous than elsewhere, the
glaciers more broken; and the summit is fronted on either side by a
huge parapet of rock which hurls defiance at anything short of an
airship. Doubtless, we shall some day travel to Crater Peak by
aeroplanes, but until these vehicles are equipped with {p.054}
runners for landing and starting on the snow, we shall do best to plan
our ascents from the south or east side.
[Illustration {p.053}: Paradise Valley or "Park," and Tatoosh
Mountains, from slope below Paradise Glacier. The highest of the peaks
are about 7,000 feet above sea level and 1,700 feet above the floor of
the valley.]
[Illustration: On the Government Road a mile above Longmires, bound
for the Nisqually Glacier.]
[Illustration: Near "Gap Point," where the road turns from the
Nisqually canyon into that of Paradise River.]
I have thus briefly pointed out the favorite routes followed in
exploring the National Park. The time is fast approaching when it will
be a truly national recreation ground, well known to Americans in
every State. The coming of new railways to Puget Sound and the
development of new facilities for reaching the Mountain make this
certain.[3]
[Footnote 3: For details as to rates for transportation,
accommodations and guides, with the rules governing the
National Park, see the notes at end of the book.]
[Illustration: Snout of Nisqually Glacier, with the river which it
feeds. Though much shrunken since the epoch when it filled the whole
canyon, the glacier is still a vast river of ice; and its front, seen
several hundred yards above the bridge, rises sheer 500 feet. The new
road to Narada Falls and Paradise Park crosses the Nisqually here.
Automobiles are not permitted to go above this point.]
Every step taken for the conservation of the natural beauty of the
Park and its opening to proper use and enjoyment is a public benefit.
Outside the national reserves, our lumbermen are fast destroying the
forests; but, if properly guarded against fire, the great Park forest
will still teach future generations how lavishly Nature plants, just
as the delightful glacial valleys and towering landmarks teach how
powerful and artistic a sculptor she is. Experienced travelers and
alpinists {p.055} who have visited the Mountain unite in declaring
its scenery, combining as it does great vistas of ice with vast
stretches of noble forest, to be unequaled elsewhere in America, and
unsurpassed anywhere. In the fascination of its glacial story, as well
as in the grandeur of its features, it has few rivals among the great
peaks of the world. The geologist, the botanist, the weary business
man, the sportsman, all find it calling them to study, to rest, or to
strenuous and profitable recreation. Here is a resource more lasting
than our timber. When the loggers shall have left us only naked
ranges, without the reserves, the Park may yield a crop more valuable.
[Illustration: Pony bridge over the Nisqually, on trail to Paradise.
Note the granite boulders which the stream has rounded in rolling them
down from the glacier.]
*[Illustration: The road a mile above the bridge, overlooking
Nisqually Canyon and Glacier.]
*[Illustration: On the Pony Trail to Paradise. This trail winds
through the dense forest above Longmires, crosses the Nisqually, and
then follows Paradise River, with its miles of picturesque cascades.
It is one of the most beautiful mountain paths in America.]
Until recent years this was known only to the hardy few who delight in
doing difficult things for great rewards. But that day of isolation
has passed. The value of the Park to the whole American people is more
{p.056} and more appreciated by them, if not yet by their official
representatives. While Congress has dealt less liberally with this
than with the other great National Parks, what it has appropriated has
been well spent in building an invaluable road, which opens one of the
most important upland regions to public knowledge and use. This road
is a continuation of the well-made highway maintained by Pierce County
from Tacoma, which passes through an attractive country of partly
wooded prairies and follows the picturesque Nisqually valley up the
heavily forested slopes to the Forest Reserve and the southwestern
corner of the Park. The public has been quick to seize the opportunity
which the roads offered. The number of persons entering the Park, as
shown by the annual reports of the Superintendent, has grown {p.057}
from 1,786 in 1906 to more than 8,000 in 1910. In the same period, the
Yellowstone National Park, with its greater age, its wider
advertising, its many hotels, its abundance of government money,
increased its total of visitors from 17,182 to 19,575.
[Illustration: Sierra Club lunching on Nisqually Glacier. The huge ice
wall in the distance is the west branch of the Nisqually, and is
sometimes miscalled "Stevens Glacier." As seen here, it forms a
"hanging glacier," which empties into the main glacier over the
cliff.]
For one thing, these roads have put it within the power of
automobilists from all parts of the Coast to reach the grandest of
American mountains and the largest glaciers of the United States south
of Alaska. They connect at Tacoma, with excellent roads from Seattle
and other cities on the Sound, as well as from Portland and points
farther south. The travel from these cities has already justified the
construction of the roads, and is increasing every year. Even from
California many automobile parties visit the Mountain. The railway
travel is also fast increasing, and the opening this year of its
transcontinental service by the Milwaukee Railway, which owns the
Tacoma Eastern line to Ashford, is likely soon to double the number of
those who journey to the Mountain by rail.
[Illustration: A Mountain Celery.]
[Illustration: Narada Falls, 185 feet, on Paradise River (altitude,
4,572 feet). Both trail and road pass it. "Narada" is an East Indian
word meaning "peace." The name was given many years ago by a party of
Theosophists who visited the falls. Happily, the effort to change the
name to "Cushman Falls" has failed.]
The new government road to Paradise and the trails {p.058}
connecting with it have, however made only a fraction of the Park
accessible. The most important work for the conservation of this great
alpine area and its opening to the public still remains to be done.
Congress is now asked to provide funds for the survey and gradual
extension of the road to the other plateaus on all sides of the peak.
Pending the construction of the road, it is highly important that, as
soon as the surveys can be made, bridle trails be built on the easy
grades thus established. Not only are these roads and trails much
needed for the convenience of visitors to the Mountain, but, with the
closer approach of logging operations, they are year by year becoming
more necessary to the proper policing of the Park and its protection
against forest fires. For want of them, great sections of forest
within the Park are liable to be swept away at any time, before the
rangers could find their way over the scant and broken trails now
existing. The request for better access to the other sides of the
Mountain has received the earnest indorsement of the Washington
legislature, the commercial organizations of the entire Coast, and the
several mountain clubs in different parts of the country. Only
Congress remains blind to its importance.
Congressional action affecting this immediate area began in 1899. A
tract eighteen miles square, 207,360 acres, to be known as "Ranier
National Park,"[4] was {p.059} withdrawn from the 2,146,600 acres of
the Pacific Forest Reserve, previously created. The area thus set
apart as "a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people"
(Act of March 2, 1899) was already known to a few enthusiasts and
explorers as one of the world's great wonderlands. In 1861 James
Longmire, a prospector, had built a trail from Yelm over Mashell
mountain and up the Nisqually river to Bear Prairie. This he extended
in 1884 to the spot now known as Longmire Springs, and thence up the
Nisqually and Paradise rivers to the region now called Paradise Park.
Part of this trail was widened later into a wagon road, used for many
years by persons seeking health at the remarkable mineral springs on
the tract which the Longmires acquired from the government before the
establishment of the Forest Reserve.
[Footnote 4: For some years, Congress and the Interior
Department spelled it "Ranier"! A well-known Congressman
from Seattle corrected their spelling of the name of the
forgotten admiral, and it has since been officially
"Rainier National Park."]
[Illustration: Washington Torrents, on Paradise River; a series of
falls a mile in length, seen from the new road to Paradise and still
better from the pony trail.]
[Illustration: Portion of Paradise Park and the Tatoosh Range.]
The Longmire road, rough as it was, long remained the best route; but
in 1903 the Mountain found a tireless friend in the late Francis W.
Cushman, representative from this State, who persuaded Congress to
authorize the survey and construction of a better highway. Work was
not begun, however, until 1906. The {p.061} yearly appropriations
have been small, and total only $240,000 for surveys, construction and
maintenance, to the end of the last session.
[Illustration {p.060}: View from north side of the Tatoosh. 1. Crater
Peak. 2. South Peak, or Peak Success. 3. Nisqually Glacier, with
feeders. 4. Gibraltar Rock. 5. Camp Muir, on Cowlitz Cleaver. 6.
Cathedral Rocks. 7. Little Tahoma. 8. Paradise Glacier. 9. Alta Vista.
10. Camp of the Clouds. 11. Reese's Camp. 12. Sluiskin Falls. 13.
Paradise River and Valley. 14. Mazama Ridge. 15. Reflection Lake. 16.
Van Trump Glacier. 17. Von Trump Park. 18. Kautz Glacier. 19.
Pyramid Peak. 20. Tahoma Glaciers. 21. Indian Henry's. Dotted line
shows South-side route to the summit.]
[Illustration: Ice Bridge, Stevens Glacier.]
[Illustration: Mountain Sports. Tug of War between teams picked from
the feminine contingent of the Mountaineers.]
The road, as now open to Paradise valley, is a monument to the
engineering skill of Mr. Eugene Ricksecker, United States Assistant
Engineer, in local charge of the work. Over its even floor you go from
the west boundary of the Forest Reserve up the north bank of the
Nisqually river, as far as the foot of its glacier. Crossing on the
bridge here, you climb up and up, around the face of a bluff known as
Gap Point, where a step over the retaining wall would mean a sheer
drop of a thousand feet into the river below. Thus you wind over to
the Paradise river and famous Narada Falls, switch back up the side of
the deep Paradise canyon to the beautiful valley of the same name
above, and, still climbing, reach Camp of the Clouds and its
picturesque tent hotel. The road has brought you a zigzag journey of
twenty-five miles to cover an air-line distance of twelve and a gain
in elevation of 3,600 feet. It is probably unique in its grades. It
has no descents. Almost everywhere it is a gentle climb. {p.062}
Below Longmire Springs the maximum grade is 2.5 per cent., and the
average, 1.6 per cent. Beyond, the grade is steeper, but nowhere more
than 4 per cent.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer. Tatoosh Mountains and
Paradise Park in Winter.]
The alignment and grades originally planned have been followed, but
for want of funds only one stretch, a mile and a quarter, has yet been
widened to the standard width of eighteen feet. Lacking money for a
broader road, the engineers built the rest of it twelve feet wide.
They wisely believed that early opening of the route for vehicles to
Paradise, even though the road be less than standard width, would
serve the public by making the Park better known, and thus arouse
interest in making it still more accessible. It will require about
$60,000 to complete the road to full width, and render it thoroughly
secure.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer.
Hiking through Paradise in Winter.]
Of still greater importance, however, to the safety of the Park and
its opening to public use is the carrying out of Mr. Ricksecker's fine
plan for a road around the Mountain. His new map of the Park, printed
at the end of this volume, shows the route proposed. Leaving the
present road near Christine Falls, below the Nisqually glacier, he
would double back over the hills to Indian Henry's, thence dropping
into the canyon of Tahoma {p.064} Fork, climbing up to St. Andrew's
Park, and so working round to the Mowich glaciers, Spray Falls, and
the great "parks" on the north. The snout of each glacier would be
reached in turn, and the high plateaus which the glaciers have left
would be visited.
[Illustration {p.063}: Copyright, 1910, By Asahel Curtis. Waterfall
from snowfields on ridge above Paradise Valley.]
[Illustration: Looking from Stevens Glacier down into Stevens Canyon,
and across the Tatoosh and Cascade ranges to Mt. Adams.]
Crossing Spray Park, Moraine Park and Winthrop glacier's old bed, the
road would ascend to Grand Park and the Sour-Dough country--a region
unsurpassed anywhere on the Mountain for the breadth and grandeur of
its views. More descents, climbs and detours would bring it to the
foot of White glacier, and thence through Summerland and Cowlitz Park,
and westward to a junction with the existing road in Paradise. Its
elevation would range between four and seven thousand feet above the
sea. The route, as indicated on the contour map, suggests very plainly
the engineering feats involved in hanging roads on these steep and
deeply-carved slopes.
[Illustration: Reese's Camp, a tent hotel on a ridge in Paradise Park,
below Camp of the Clouds (Elevation, 5,557 feet). This is the usual
starting point of parties to the summit over the South-side route, via
Gibraltar. See p. 60.]
Between eighty and a hundred miles of construction work would be
required, costing approximately $10,000 a mile. Including the
completion of the present {p.067} road to standard width, Congress
will thus have to provide a round million if it wishes to give
reasonable protection to the Park and fully achieve the purpose of
"benefit and enjoyment" for which it was created. Such a road would
justify the Congress which authorizes it, immortalize the engineers
who build it, and honor the nation that owns it.
[Illustration {p.065}: Climbing the "horn" on the summit of Unicorn
Peak, the highest crag in the Tatoosh (Elevation, about 7,000 feet).
The man who first reached the top is dimly seen in the shadow on the
left.]
[Illustration {p.066}: Stevens Canyon in October, with Mt. Adams over
eastern end of Tatoosh range on right, and Cascade range on left. The
snow summits on the Cascade sky-line are "Goat Peaks." Goat Lick Basin
is in lower left corner of the picture.]
[Illustration: Sluiskin Falls, 150 feet, just below Paradise Glacier,
named after Sluiskin, the famous Indian who guided Van Trump and
Stevens to the snow line in 1870.]
Talking with President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University a few
weeks ago, I found that famous climber of mountains greatly interested
in the project for better roads and trails in the National Park. "How
much will the whole thing cost?" he asked. I told him.
[Illustration: An eminent scientist practices the simple life in camp
near the Timber Line.]
"Why, a million dollars would pay for the upkeep of one of our
battleships for a whole year!" exclaimed the great advocate of
disarmament. Whether Congress can be induced to value scenery as
highly as battleships remains to be seen. It has already done very
well by the Yellowstone National Park, where $2,142,720 of government
money had been spent on road building and administration up to July 1,
1910. No one who knows the glories of that park will deem the amount
excessive. But with its still grander scenery, its important glaciers,
its priceless forests, and the greater population within easy reach of
its opportunities for study and recreation, the claims of the Rainier
National Park are at least equal to those of the Yellowstone, and they
should be as liberally met.
[Illustration {p.068}: Nisqually Glacier, with its sources in the
snow field of the summit. On the right is Gibraltar Rock and on the
extreme left Kautz Glacier flows down from Peak Success. Note the
medial moraines, resulting from junction of ice streams above. These
apparently small lines of dirt are often great ridges of rocks, cut
from the cliffs. The picture also illustrates how the marginal
crevasses of a glacier point down stream from the center, though the
center flows faster than the sides.]
{p.069}
[Illustration: The Sierra Club on Nisqually Glacier. This active
California organization sent a large party to the Mountain in 1905.]
It is not desired that the whole sum named be appropriated at once.
Indeed, the recommendation of the engineers has been far more modest.
As far back as 1907, Maj. H. M. Chittenden of the United States
Engineer Corps, in charge, wrote as follows in his report to the
Secretary of War:
A bridle trail around the Mountain, just under the glacier line,
is absolutely essential to the proper policing of the Park, and
very necessary for the convenience of tourists, if they are
really to have access to the attractions of the Park. The trail
should be so located that in time it may be enlarged into a wagon
road.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, Asahel Curtis. Lost to the World,
7,500 feet above sea level, with an ocean of cloud rising.]
This recommendation has been indorsed by Major Chittenden's successor,
Maj. C. W. Kutz, and may be taken as expressing the conviction of the
government {p.070} engineers as to the minimum of work needed in the
Park at once. For the necessary surveys and the building of the
trails, Mr. Ricksecker informs me that $50,000 will probably be
enough. This is so insignificant in comparison with the good sought
and the value of the national property to be protected and made
accessible that its immediate appropriation by Congress should be
beyond question. Nevertheless, half that amount has twice been asked
for in measures introduced by Senator S. H. Piles, but in neither case
did the appropriation pass both houses. It is to be hoped that the
present Congress will give the full amount of $50,000, which will
enable the surveys to be completed over the entire route, and trails
to be built on most, if not all, of that route. Their widening into
permanent roads will follow in due time, when the wonders of glacier,
canyon and forest which they make accessible are once known.
[Illustration: "Sunshine." View of the Mountain from above Sluiskin
Falls at 3 P.M.]
[Illustration: "Storm." View near the same point an hour later.]
The road recently completed to Paradise Valley should be widened, by
all means, and made safer by retaining walls at every danger point.
But it is doubtful whether automobiles will ever be permitted above
the bridge at the Nisqually glacier. Some automobile owners regard the
Park as an automobile-club preserve, and insist that nothing more be
done toward the opening of its {p.072} scenery or the conservation
of its forest until it is made safe for them to run their touring cars
into Paradise. This is unfortunate, because it betrays ignorance of
the purpose of Congress in creating the National Parks, namely, the
education and enjoyment of all the people, not the pleasure of a
class. Moreover, no matter how wide or well-guarded the road may be
above the bridge, it can never be wide enough to prevent a reckless
chauffeur from causing a terrible fatality. It is necessarily a very
crooked road, hung upon the high ledges of precipitous cliffs. While
the road is safe for coaches drawn by well-broken horses and driven by
trustworthy drivers, it would be criminal folly to open it to the
crowd of automobiles that would rush to Paradise Valley. If
automobiles are permitted to go beyond the Nisqually glacier, it
should be only when in charge of a park officer.
[Illustration {p.071}: Looking down on Nisqually Glacier from top of
Gibraltar Rock, with storm clouds veiling the Mountain.]
[Illustration: Measuring the Ice Flow in Nisqually Glacier. In 1905
Prof. J. N. Le Conte of Berkeley, Cal., established the fact that this
glacier has an average flow, in summer, of 16.2 inches a day. The
movement is greater at the center than on the sides, and greater on
the convex side of a curve than on the concave side. It thus is a true
river, though a slow one. The measurements are taken by running a line
from one lateral moraine to the other with a transit, setting stakes
across the glacier at short intervals, and ascertaining the advance
they make from day to day.]
Even from the older and wider roads of the Yellowstone automobiles
have been excluded, although there are no large cities near by, as
there are here, to send hundreds of cars into that park on any
pleasant day. The automobilists will be wise to accept their privilege
of access to the foot of the glacier, and use it with care, too.
Several serious accidents have already occurred, and if greater care
is not exercised, the Interior Department will apply the Yellowstone
rule, at least to the extent of stopping all cars at Longmires.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Miss Fay Fuller
exploring a crevasse.]
[Illustration {p.073}: Copyright 1906, By A. H. Barnes. Ice Cave,
Paradise Glacier.]
Questions like this, involving conflict between the interests of a
class and the vital needs of the Park as a public institution,
{p.075} give especial emphasis to the recommendation made by
Secretary Ballinger on his last annual report. Owing to the great
number and extent of the National Parks, and the inefficiency of the
present "perfunctory policy" in their administration, Mr. Ballinger
asked Congress to put the management of these institutions under a
Bureau of National Parks, conducted by a competent commissioner, and
organized for efficient field administration and careful inspection of
all public work and of the conduct of concessionaries. Regarding the
need of such a systematic and scientific organization for the
development of the parks, he says:
A definite policy for their maintenance, supervision and
improvement should be established, which would enable them to be
gradually opened up for the convenience of tourists and campers
and for the careful preservation of their natural features.
Complete and comprehensive plans for roads, trails, telegraph and
telephone lines, sewer and water systems, hotel accommodations,
transportation, and other conveniences should be made before any
large amount of money is expended. The treatment of our national
parks, except as regards the Yellowstone, has not heretofore had
the benefit of any well-considered or systematic plans. In all of
them the road and trail problems for public travel and
convenience to enable tourists to obtain the benefits of scenic
beauties are primary, but sewage, water, and electric-power
problems are after all of equal importance.
[Illustration: Fairy Falls in Goat Lick Basin, below Stevens Glacier.]
In line with Secretary Ballinger's report, Senator Flint of California
introduced a bill authorizing the creation of such a bureau in the
Interior Department. The bill failed to get through at the last
session, but I am informed by Senator Jones that it will be
reintroduced. Its purpose is of great public importance, and the
indorsement of the very intelligent directors of the Sierra Club in
California argues well for its form. Every person interested in the
development of our National Parks to fullest usefulness and the proper
conservation of their natural beauty should work for the passage of
the bill.
[Illustration {p.076}: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Gibraltar and
its Neighbors, showing a mile of the deeply crevassed ice-field inside
the angle of which the great crag is the apex. On the left are Cowlitz
Cleaver and the Bee-Hive; on the right, Cathedral Rocks.]
{p.077}
[Illustration: Crossing Carbon Glacier. On the ice slopes, it
is customary to divide a large party into companies of ten, with an
experienced alpinist at the head of each. Note the medial moraines on
the glacier.]
III.
THE STORY OF THE MOUNTAIN.
I asked myself, How was this colossal work performed? Who
chiseled these mighty and picturesque masses out of a mere
protuberance of earth? And the answer was at hand. Ever young,
ever mighty, with the vigor of a thousand worlds still within
him, the real sculptor was even then climbing up the eastern sky.
It was he who planted the glaciers on the mountain slopes, thus
giving gravity a plough to open out the valleys; and it is he
who, acting through the ages, will finally lay low these mighty
monuments, * * * so that the people of an older earth may see
mould spread and corn wave over the hidden rocks which at this
moment bear the weight of the Jungfrau.--_John Tyndall: "Hours of
Exercise in the Alps."_
The life of a glacier is one eternal grind.--_John Muir._
Our stately Mountain, in its youth, was as comely and symmetrical a
cone as ever graced the galaxy of volcanic peaks. To-day, while still
young as compared with the obelisk crags of the Alps, it has already
taken on the venerable and deeply-scarred physiognomy of a veteran. It
is no longer merely an overgrown boy among the hills, but, cut and
torn by the ice of centuries, it is fast assuming the dignity and
interest of a patriarch of the mountains.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. Reflection Lake,
below Pinnacle Peak and the Mountain.]
To some, no doubt, the smooth, youthful contours of an active volcano
seem more beautiful than the rugged grandeur of the Weisshorn. The
perfect cone of Mt. St. Helens, until recently in eruption, pleases
them more than the broad dome of Mt. Adams, rounded by an explosion in
the unknown past. But for those who love nature and the story written
upon its {p.079} face, mountains have character as truly as men,
and they show it in their features as clearly.
[Illustration {p.078}: Looking up from Cowlitz Chimneys to Gibraltar
and the summit. 1, Crater and Columbia's Crest. 2, Peak Success. 3,
Upper snow fields of Nisqually Glacier. 4, Gibraltar Rock. 5, Cowlitz
Cleaver. 6, Cathedral Rocks. 7, Little Tahoma. 8, Cowlitz Glacier. 9,
Ingraham Glacier, emptying into the Cowlitz.]
[Illustration: Divide of Paradise and Stevens Glaciers. Once probably
separated by a chine of rock, they are now one save for a slight
elevation in their bed, which turns them respectively toward Paradise
Valley and Stevens Canyon.]
[Illustration: Old Moraine of Stevens Glacier. Now comparatively small
and harmless, this glacier did heavy work in its prime. Witness,
Stevens Canyon (p. 66) and this huge pile of debris, showing that some
time ago the glacier, finding a cliff in its way, cut it down and
dumped it here.]
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the monarch of the
Cascades. No longer the huge conical pimple which a volcano erected on
the earth's crust, it bears upon it the history of its own explosion,
which scattered its top far over the landscape, and of its losing
battle with the sun, which, employing the heaviest of all {p.080}
tools, is steadily destroying it. It has already lost a tenth of its
height and a third of its bulk. The ice is cutting deeper and deeper
into its sides. Upon three of them, it has excavated great
amphitheaters, which it is ceaselessly driving back toward the heart
of the peak. As if to compensate for losses in size and shapeliness,
the Mountain presents the most important phenomena of glacial action
to be seen in the United States.
[Illustration: Climbers preparing for a night at Camp Muir (altitude
10,000 feet), in order to get an early start for the summit. This is
on the Cowlitz Cleaver, below Gibraltar. John Muir, the famous
mountain climber, selected this spot as a camp in 1888. A stout cabin
should be built here to shelter climbers.]
[Illustration: The Bee-Hive, a landmark on Cowlitz Cleaver, below
Gibraltar.]
In its dimensions, however, it is still one of the world's great
peaks. The Rainier National Park, eighteen miles square--as large as
many counties in the East--has an elevation along its western and
lowest boundary averaging four thousand feet above sea level. Assuming
a diameter for the peak of only twenty miles, the {p.081} area
occupied by this creature of a volcano exceeds three hundred square
miles. Of its vast surface upwards of 32,500 acres, or about fifty-one
square miles, are covered by glaciers or the fields of perpetual snow
which feed them. A straight line drawn through from the end of North
Tahoma glacier, on the west side, to the end of White glacier, on the
east, would be thirteen miles long. The circumference of the crest on
the 10,000-foot contour is nearly seven miles. Its glacial system is,
and doubtless has long been, the most extensive on the continent,
south of Alaska; it is said by scientists to outrank that of any
mountain in Europe. The twelve primary glaciers vary in length from
three to eight miles, and from half a mile to three miles in width.
There are nearly as many "interglaciers," or smaller ice streams which
gather their snow supply, not from the névé fields of the summit, but
within the wedges of rock which the greater glaciers have left
pointing upward on the higher slopes.
[Illustration: Mazama Club on Cowlitz Chimneys, looking across the
ice-stream of the Cowlitz Glacier.]
[Illustration: Climbing Cowlitz Cleaver to Gibraltar. This hacked and
weather-worn spine left by the glaciers forms one wing of a great
inverted V, with Gibraltar as its apex. On the other side of it is a
drop of several thousand feet to Nisqually Glacier.]
The geological story may be told in a few untechnical words. As those
folds in the earth's crust which parallel the coast were slowly formed
by the lateral pressure of sea upon land, fractures often occurred in
the general incline thus {p.082} created. Through the fissures that
resulted the subterranean fires thrust molten rock. In many cases, the
expulsion was of sufficient amount and duration to form clearly
defined volcanic craters. The most active craters built up, by
continued eruptions of lava and ashes, a great series of cones now
seen on both sides of the Cordillera, that huge mountain system which
borders the Pacific from Behring sea to the Straits of Magellan.
Tacoma-Rainier is one of the more important units in this army of
volcanic giants.
[Illustration: Mazamas rounding Gibraltar--a reminiscence of the
ascent by the Portland club in 1905. The precipice rises more than
1000 feet above the trail which offers a precarious footing at the
head of a steep slope of loose talus.]
Unlike some of its companions, however, it owes its bulk less to lava
flows than to the explosive eruptions which threw forth bombs and
scoriae. It is a mass of agglomerates, with only occasional strata of
solid volcanic rock. This becomes evident to one who inspects the
exposed sides of any of the canyons, or of the great cliffs, Gibraltar
Rock, Little Tahoma or Russell Peak. It is made clear in such pictures
as are on this page and the next.
This looseness of structure accounts for the rapidity with which the
glaciers are cutting into the peak, and carrying it away. Most of them
carry an extraordinary amount of debris, to be deposited in lateral or
terminal moraines, or dropped in streams which they feed. They are
rivers of rock as well as of ice.
[Illustration: Under the walls of Gibraltar.]
{p.083} That the glaciers of this and every other mountain in the
northern hemisphere are receding, and that they are now mere pygmies
compared with their former selves, is well known. What their
destructive power must have been when their volume was many times
greater than now may be judged from the moraines along their former
channels. Some of these ridges are hundreds of feet in height. As you
go to the Mountain from Tacoma, either by the Tacoma Eastern railway
or the Nisqually canyon road, you find them everywhere above the
prairies. They are largest on the north side of the Mountain, because
there the largest glaciers have been busy. Many of them, on all sides,
are covered with forests that must be centuries old.
Even now, diminished as they are, the glaciers are fast transporting
the Mountain toward the sea. Wherever a glacier skirts a cliff, it is
cutting into its side, as it cuts into its own bed below. From the
overhanging rocks, too, debris falls as a result of "weathering." The
daily ebb and flow of frost and heat help greatly to tear down the
cliffs. Thus marginal moraines built of the debris begin to form, on
the ice, far up the side of the peak. As the glacier advances, driven
by its weight and the resistless mass of snow above, it is often
joined by another glacier, bringing its own marginal moraines. Where
the two meet, a medial moraine results. (See illustrations, pp. 68 and
77.) Some medial moraines are many feet high. Trees are found growing
on them. In Switzerland houses are built upon them. Often the debris
which they transport, as the ice carries them forward, includes rocks
as big as a ship.
[Illustration: One of the bedrooms at Camp Muir.]
[Illustration {p.084}: A perilous position on the edge of a great
crevasse. Cowlitz Glacier, near end of Cathedral Rocks.]
A glacier's flow varies from a hundred to a thousand feet or more a
year, depending upon {p.085} its volume, its width, and the slope of
its bed. As the decades pass, its level is greatly lowered by the
melting of the ice. More and more, earth and rocks accumulate upon the
surface, as it travels onward, and are scattered over it by the rains
and melting snow. At last, in its old age, when far down its canyon,
the glacier is completely hidden, save where crevasses reveal the ice.
Only at its snout, where it breaks off, as a rule, in a high wall of
ice, do we realize how huge a volume and weight it must have, far
above toward its sources, or why so many of the crevasses on the upper
ice fields seem almost bottomless.
[Illustration: Climbing the "Chute," west side of Gibraltar. Here the
guides cut steps in the ice.]
These hints of the almost inconceivable mass of a glacier, with its
millions of millions of tons, suggest how much of the Mountain has
already been whittled and planed away. But here we may do better than
speculate. The original surface of the peak is clearly indicated by
the tops of the great rocks which have survived the glacial
sculpturing. These rise from one to two thousand feet above the
glaciers, which are themselves several thousand feet in depth. The
best known of them is the point formed by Gibraltar and the ridges
that stretch downward from it, Cowlitz Cleaver and Cathedral Rocks,
making a great inverted V. Eastward of this, another V with its apex
toward the summit, is called Little Tahoma; and beyond, still another,
Steamboat Prow, forming the tip of "The Wedge."
Spines of rock like these are found on all sides of the peak. They
help us to estimate its greater circumference and bulk, before the
glaciers had chiseled so deep.
[Illustration: Looking from top of Gibraltar to the Summit. Elevation
of camera, 12,300 feet. In distance is seen the rim of the crater. The
route to this is a steady climb, with 2,000 feet of ascent in one mile
of distance. Many detours have to be made to avoid crevasses. Note the
big crevasse stretching away on right--a "Bergschrund," as the Swiss
call a break where one side falls below the other. The stratification
on its side shows in each layer a year's snow, packed into ice.]
{p.086} But they do even more. Wherever lava flows occurred in the
building of the Mountain, strata formed; and such stratification is
clearly seen at intervals on the sides of the great rocks just
mentioned. Its incline, of course, is that of the former surface. The
strata point upward--not toward the summit which we see, but far above
it. For this reason the geologists who have examined the arêtes most
closely are agreed that the peak has lost nearly two thousand feet of
its height. It blew its own head off!
Such explosive eruptions are among the worst vices of volcanoes. Every
visitor to Naples remembers how plainly the landscape north of
Vesuvius tells of a prehistoric decapitation, which left only a low,
broad platform, on the south rim of which the little Vesuvius that
many of us have climbed was formed by later eruptions, while a part of
the north rim is well defined in "Monte Somma." Similarly, here at
home, Mt. Adams and Mt. Baker are truncated cones, while, on the other
hand, St. Helens and Hood are still symmetrical.
Like Vesuvius, too, Rainier-Tacoma has built upon the plateau left
when it lost its head. Peak Success, overlooking Indian Henry's, and
Liberty Cap, the northern elevation, seen from Seattle and Tacoma, are
nearly three miles apart on the west side of the broad summit. These
are parts of the rim of the old crater. East of the line uniting them,
and about two miles from each, the volcano built up an elevation now
known as Crater Peak, comprising two small adjacent craters. These
burnt-out craters are now filled with snow, and where the rims touch,
a big snow-hill rises--the strange creature of eddying winds that
sweep up through the great flume cut by volcanic explosion and
glacial action in the west side of the peak. (See pp. 14, 27, and 52.)
[Illustration {p.087}: View South from Cowlitz Glacier: elevation,
8,000 feet. Seven miles away are the huge eastern peaks of the
Tatoosh. The Cascades beyond break in Cispus Pass, and rise, on the
left, to the glacier summits called Goat Peaks. The truncated cone of
Mt. Adams, more than forty miles away, crowns the sky-line.]
{p.088}
[Illustration: These views show the larger of the two comparatively
modern and small craters on the broad platform left by the explosion
which decapitated the Peak. Prof. Flett measured this crater, and
found it 1,600 feet from north to south, and 1,450 feet from east to
west. The other, much smaller, adjoins it so closely that their rims
touch. Together they form an eminence of 1,000 feet (Crater Peak), at
a distance of about two miles from North Peak (Liberty Cap) and South
Peak (Peak Success). At the junction of their rims is the great snow
hill (on right of view) called "Columbia's Crest." This is the actual
summit. The volcano having long been inactive, the craters are filled
with snow, but the residual heat causes steam and gases to escape in
places along their rims.]
[Illustration {p.089}]
This mound of snow is the present actual top. Believing it the highest
point in the United States south of Alaska, a party of climbers, in
1894, named it "Columbia's Crest." This was long thought to be the
Mountain's rightful distinction, for different computations by experts
gave various elevations ranging as high as 14,529 feet, with none
prior to 1902 giving less than 14,444 feet. Even upon a government map
published as late as 1907 the height is stated as 14,526 feet. In view
of this variety of expert opinion, the flattering name, not
unnaturally, has stuck, in spite of the fact that the government
geographers have now adopted, for the Dictionary of Altitudes, the
height found by the United States Geological Survey in 1902, 14,363
feet. That decision leaves the honor of being the loftiest peak
between Alaska and Mexico to Mt. Whitney in the California Sierra
(14,502 feet).
[Illustration: Steam Caves in one of the craters. The residual heat of
the extinct volcano causes steam and gases to escape from vents in the
rims of the two small craters. Alpinists often spend a night in the
caves thus formed in the snow.]
{p.089}
[Illustration: North Peak, named "Liberty Cap" because of its
resemblance to the Bonnet Rouge of the French Revolutionists.
Elevation, about 14,000 feet. View taken from the side of Crater Peak.
Distance, nearly two miles.]
The definitive map of the National Park which was begun last summer by
the Geological Survey, with Mr. Francois E. Matthes in charge, will
establish the elevations of all important landmarks in the Park. Among
these will be the Mountain itself. Whether this will add much, if
anything, to the current figure of the Dictionary is uncertain. In any
case, the result will not lessen the pride of the Northwest in its
great peak. A few feet of height signify nothing. No California
mountain masked behind the Sierra can vie in majesty with this lonely
pile that rises in stately grandeur from the shores of Puget Sound.
[Illustration {p.090}: Goat Peaks, glacier summits in the Cascades,
southeast of the Mountain. Elevation, about 8,000 feet, A branch of
the Cowlitz is seen flowing down from the glaciers above.]
[Illustration {p.091}: Copyright 1907, By W. P. Romans. Spray Park,
from Fay Peak, showing the beautiful region between the Carbon and
North Mowich Glaciers.]
{p.093}
[Illustration: Ice-bound Lake in Cowlitz Park, with top of
Little Tahoma in distance.]
[Illustration: Crevasses in Cowlitz Glacier, with waterfall dropping
from Cowlitz Park, over basaltic cliffs.]
The wide area which the Mountain thrusts far up into the sky is a
highly efficient condenser of moisture. Near to the Pacific as it is,
its broad summit and upper slopes collect several hundred feet of snow
each year from the warm Chinooks blowing in from the west. On all
sides this vast mass presses down, hardened into solid granular névé,
to feed the twelve primary glaciers. Starting eastward from Paradise
Valley, these principal ice-streams are: Cowlitz and Ingraham
glaciers; White or White River glacier, largest of all; Winthrop
glacier, named in honor of Theodore Winthrop, in whose romance of
travel, "The Canoe and the Saddle," the ancient Indian name "Tacoma"
was first printed; Carbon, North and South Mowich, Puyallup, North and
South Tahoma, Kautz and Nisqually glaciers. The most important
secondary glaciers, or "interglaciers," rising within the great rock
wedges which I have described, are called Interglacier, Frying-Pan,
{p.094} Stevens, Paradise and Van Trump. All of these are of the true
Alpine type; that is, they are moving rivers of ice, as distinguished
from "continental glaciers," the ice caps which cover vast regions in
the Arctic and Antarctic.
[Illustration: Crossing a precipitous slope on White Glacier. Little
Tahoma in distance.]
In thus naming the glaciers, I have followed the time-honored local
usage, giving the names applied by the earliest explorers and since
used with little variation in the Northwest. There has been some
confusion, however, chiefly owing to a recent government map. For
instance, in that publication, White glacier, properly so called
because it is the main feeder of the White river, was named Emmons
glacier, after S. F. Emmons, a geologist who was one of the first to
visit it. It is interesting to note that in his reports Mr. Emmons
himself called this the White River glacier. On the other hand, the
map mentioned, after displacing the name White from the larger glacier
to which it logically belongs, gave it to the ice-stream feeding
another branch of the White river, namely, the glacier always locally
called the Winthrop, and so called by Prof. Russell in his report to
the Geological Survey in 1897.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1910, By S. C. Smith. Climbing Goat Peaks,
in the Cascades, with the Mountain twenty miles away.]
[Illustration {p.095}: Looking up White Glacier (right), from a point
on its lower end, showing vast amount of morainal debris carried down
by this glacier. Little Tahoma in middle distance; Gibraltar and
Cathedral Rocks on extreme right; "Goat Island" on left. Elevation of
camera, about 4,500 feet. Note the "cloud banner" which the crag has
flung to the breeze.]
{p.096}
[Illustration: The Mountain seen from the top of Cascade
range, with party starting west over the forest trails for Paradise.]
[Illustration: Great moraine built by Frying-Pan Glacier on side of
"Goat Island."]
Similarly, North and South Mowich, names of the streams to which they
give birth, were miscalled Willis and Edmunds glaciers, after Bailey
Willis, geologist, and George F. Edmunds, late United States senator,
who visited the Mountain many years ago. The Mowich rivers were so
named by the Indians from the fact that, in the great rocks on the
northwest side of the peak, just below the summit, they saw the figure
of the mowich, or deer. The deer of rock is there still--he may be
seen in several pictures in this volume,--and so long as he keeps to
his icy pasture it will be difficult to displace his name from the
glaciers and rivers below. The southern branch of the great Tahoma
glacier, locally called South Tahoma glacier, this map renamed Wilson
glacier, for A. D. Wilson, Emmons's companion in exploration. Finally,
the name of General Hazard Stevens, who, {p.097} with Mr. Van Trump,
made the first ascent of the peak in 1870, was misplaced, being given
to the west branch of the Nisqually, whereas the general usage has
fixed the name of that pioneer upon the well-defined interglacier east
of the Paradise, and above Stevens canyon, which in its prime it
carved on the side of the Mountain. General Stevens himself writes me
from Boston that this is the correct usage.
[Illustration: Coming around Frying-Pan Glacier, below Little Tahoma.]
Such errors in an official document are the more inexcusable because
their author ignored local names recognized in the earlier
publications of the government and its agents. In such matters, too,
the safe principle is to follow local custom where that is logical and
established. The new map prepared by Mr. Ricksecker, and printed
herewith, returns to the older and better usage. Unless good reason
can be shown for departing from it, his careful compilation should be
followed. Willis Wall, above Carbon Glacier, appropriately recalls the
work of Bailey Willis. The explorations of Emmons and Wilson may well
be commemorated by landmarks as yet unnamed, not by displacing fit
names long current.
In connection with his survey of the Park, Mr. Matthes has been
authorized to collect local testimony as to established names within
that area, and to invite suggestions as to appropriate names for
landmarks not yet definitely named. His report will doubtless go to
the National Geographic Board for final decision on the names
recommended. Thus, in time, we may hope to see this awkward and
confusing tangle in mountain nomenclature straightened out.
[Illustration: Sunrise above the clouds, seen from Camp Curtis, on the
Wedge, (altitude 9,500 feet); White Glacier below. This camp was named
by the Mountaineers in 1909, in honor of Asahel Curtis, the Seattle
climber.]
{p.098}
[Illustration: Looking up from "Snipe Lake," a small pond below
Interglacier, to the head of Winthrop Glacier and Liberty Cap.]
The written history of the Mountain begins with its discovery by
Captain George Vancouver. Its first appearance upon a map occurs in
Vancouver's well-known report, published in 1798, after his death:
"Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and around the World,
1790-1795."
It was in the summer of 1792, shortly after Vancouver had entered the
Sound, he tells us, that he first saw "a very remarkable high round
mountain, covered with snow, apparently at the southern extremity of
the distant snowy range." A few days later he again mentions "the
round snowy mountain," "which, after my friend Rear-Admiral Rainier, I
distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier." Nearly all of Captain
Vancouver's friends were thus distinguished, at the cost of the Indian
names, to which doubtless he gave no thought. Sonorous "Kulshan" and
unique "Whulge" were lost, in order that we might celebrate "Mr.
Baker" and "Mr. Puget," junior officers of Vancouver's expedition.
[Illustration: Passing a big crevasse on Interglacier. Sour-Dough
Mountains on the right, with Grand Park beyond: St. Elmo Pass in
center, Snipe Lake and Glacier Basin in depression.]
[Illustration {p.099}: View north from Mt. Ruth (part of the Wedge), with
Interglacier in foreground, the Snipe Lake country below, Sour-Dough
Mountains on right, Grand Park in middle distance, and Mt. Baker, with
the summits of the Selkirks, far away in Canada, on the horizon.]
{p.100}
[Illustration: Camp on St. Elmo Pass, north side of the Wedge, between
Winthrop Glacier and Interglacier. Elevation, 9,000 feet. Winthrop
Glacier and the fork of White River which it feeds are seen in
distance below. The man is Maj. E. S. Ingraham, a veteran explorer of
the Mountain, after whom Ingraham Glacier is named.]
[Illustration: East face of the Mountain, from south side of the
Wedge, showing route to the summit over White Glacier.]
Happily, the fine Indian name "Tacoma" was not offered up a sacrifice
to such obscurity. Forgotten as he is now, Peter Rainier was, in his
time, something of a figure. After some ransacking of libraries, I
have found a page that gives us a glimpse of a certain hard-fought
though unequal combat, in the year 1778, between an American privateer
and two British ships. It is of interest in connection with "Mount
Rainier," the name recognized by the Geographic Board at Washington in
1889 as official.
On the 8th of July, the 14-gun ship Ostrich, Commander Peter
Rainier, on the Jamaica station, in company with the 10-gun armed
brig Lowestoffe's Prize, chased a large brig. After a long run,
the Ostrich brought the brig, which was the American privateer
Polly, to action, and, after an engagement of three hours'
duration (by which time the Lowestoffe's Prize had arrived up and
{p.101} taken part in the contest), compelled her to surrender.
* * * * Captain Rainier was wounded by a musket ball through the
left breast; he could not, however, be prevailed upon to go
below, but remained on deck till the close of the action. He was
posted, and appointed to command the 64-gun ship Burford.
(_Allen: "Battles of the British Navy,"_ Vol. I., London, 1872).
[Illustration: Admiral Peter Rainier, of the British Navy, in whose
honor Captain George Vancouver, in 1792, named the great peak "Mt.
Rainier."]
Before quitting with Vancouver and eighteenth-century history of the
Mountain, I note that our peak enjoyed a further honor. Captain
Vancouver records an interesting event that took place on the
anniversary of King George's birth;--"on which auspicious day," he
says, "I had long since designed to take formal possession of all the
countries we had lately been employed in exploring, in the name of,
and for, His Britannic Majesty, his heirs and successors." And he did!
[Illustration: First picture of the Mountain, from Vancouver's "Voyage
of Discovery," London, 1798.]
After Vancouver's brief mention, and the caricature of our peak
printed in his work, literature is practically silent about the
Mountain for more than sixty years. Those years witnessed the failure
of England's memorable struggle to make good Vancouver's "annexation."
Oregon was at last a state. Out of its original area Washington
Territory had just been carved. In that year of 1853 {p.102} came
Theodore Winthrop, of the old New England family, who was destined to
a lasting and pathetic fame as an author of delightful books and a
victim of the first battle of the Civil War. Sailing into what is now
the harbor of the city of Tacoma, he there beheld the peak. We feel
his enthusiasm as he tells of the appeal it made to him.
[Illustration: Climbers on St. Elmo Pass, seen from the upper side.]
[Illustration: St. Elmo Pass from north side. The name was given by
Maj. Ingraham in 1886 because of a remarkable exhibition of St. Elmo's
fire seen here during a great storm. A cabin is needed at this
important crossing.]
[Illustration: Avalanche Camp (11,000 feet), on the high, ragged chine
between Carbon and Winthrop. Carbon Glacier, seen below, has cut
through a great range, leaving Mother Mountains on the left and the
Sluiskins, right.]
We had rounded a point, and opened Puyallop Bay, a breadth of
sheltered calmness, when I was suddenly aware of a vast white
shadow in the water. What cloud, piled massive on the horizon,
could cast an image so sharp in outline, so full of vigorous
detail of surface? No cloud, but a cloud compeller. It was a
giant mountain dome of snow, swelling and seeming to fill the
aerial spheres, as its image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil
water. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in the
unearthly regions of clear blue noonday sky.
Kingly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible consort,
though far to the north and the south its brethren and sisters
dominated their realms. Of all the peaks from California to
{p.103} Frazer's River, this one before me was royalest. Mount
Regnier[5] Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature
perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously the
Siwashes call it Tacoma,--a generic term also applied to all snow
peaks. Tacoma, under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or
an ancient volcano fallen in, and perhaps not yet wholly
lifeless. The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of
feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force and
hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes are calmer
and more divine.
[Footnote 5: Winthrop's error was a common one at that
time and has remained current till to-day. The admiral's
grandfather, the Huguenot exile, was "Regnier," but his
descendants anglicized the patronymic into "Rainier."]
No foot of man had ever trampled those pure snows. It was a
virginal mountain, distant from human inquisitiveness as a marble
goddess is from human loves. Yet there was nothing unsympathetic
in its isolation, or despotic in its distant majesty. Only the
thought of eternal peace arose from this heaven-upbearing
monument like incense, and, overflowing, filled the world with
deep and holy calm.
Our lives demand visual images that can be symbols to us of the
grandeur or the sweetness of repose. The noble works of nature,
and mountains most of all,
"have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence."
And, studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there passed
from it and entered into my being a thought and image of solemn
beauty, which I could thenceforth evoke whenever in the world I
must {p.104} have peace or die. For such emotion years of
pilgrimage were worthily spent. ("_The Canoe and the Saddle_,"
published posthumously in 1862).
[Illustration: Russell Peak, from Avalanche Camp, 2,500 feet below.
Named for Prof. Israel C. Russell, geologist.]
[Illustration: Looking up Winthrop Glacier from Avalanche Camp.]
[Illustration: Looking across Winthrop Glacier from Avalanche Camp to
Steamboat Prow (the Wedge) and St. Elmo Pass. Elevation of camera,
11,000 feet.]
In the controversy over the Mountain's name, some persons have been
misled into imaging Winthrop a fabricator of pseudo-Indian
nomenclature. But his work bears scrutiny. He wrote before there was
any dispute as to the name, or any rivalry between towns to confound
partisanship with scholarship. He was in the Territory while Captain
George B. McClellan, was surveying the Cascades to find a pass for a
railroad. He was in close touch with McClellan's party, and doubtless
knew well its able ethnologist, George Gibbs, the Harvard man whose
works on the Indian languages of the Northwest are the foundation of
all later books in that field. Although he first learned it from the
Indians, in all likelihood he discussed the name "Tacoma" with Gibbs,
who was already collecting material for his writings, published in the
{p.107} report of the Survey and in the "Contributions" of the
Smithsonian Institution. Among these are the vocabularies of a score
of Indian dialects, which must be mentioned here because they are
conclusive as to the form, meaning and application of the name.
[Illustration {p.105}: View south from the Sluiskin Mountains across
Moraine Park to the head of Carbon Glacier. Elevation of camera, 6,500
feet. Moraine Park, below, was until recently the bed of an
interglacier. On the extreme left, Avalanche Camp and Russell Peak are
seen between Carbon and Winthrop Glaciers.]
[Illustration {p.106}: Portion of Spray Park, with north-side view of
the Mountain, showing Observation Rock and timber line. Elevation of
camera, 7,000 feet.]
[Illustration: Climbing the séracs of Winthrop Glacier.]
In his vocabulary of the Winatsha (Wenatchee) language, Gibbs entered:
"T'koma, snow peak." In that of the Niswalli (Nisqually), he noted:
"Takob, the name of Mt. Rainier." "T'kope," Chinook for white, is
evidently closely allied. Gibbs himself tells us that the Northwestern
dialects treated b and m as convertible. "Takob" is equivalent to
"Takom" or "T'koma." Far, then, from coining the word, Winthrop did
not even change its Indian form, as some have supposed, by modifying
the mouth-filling "Tahoma" of the Yakimas into the simpler, stronger
and more musical "Tacoma." This is as pure Indian as the other, and
Winthrop's popularization of the word was a public service, as
perpetuating one of the most significant of our Indian place-names.
I have said thus much, not to revive a musty and, to me, very amusing
quarrel, but because correspondents in different parts of the country
have asked regarding facts that are naturally part of the history of
the Mountain. Some would even have me stir the embers of that ancient
controversy. For instance, here is the _Bulletin of the Geographical
Society of Philadelphia_ taking me to task:
This book would also do a great service if it would help
popularize the name "Tacoma" in spite of the Mountain's official
designation "Rainier"--a name to which it has no right when its
old Indian name is at once so beautiful and appropriate. It is to
be regretted that a more vigorous protest has not been made
against the modern name, and also against such propositions as
that of changing "Narada Falls" to "Cushman Falls."
[Illustration: Ice pinnacles on the Carbon.]
The mistaken attempt to displace the name of Narada Falls was
still-born from the start, and needed no help to kill it. There are
many unnamed landmarks {p.108} in the National Park ready to
commemorate Mr. Cushman's ambition to make the Mountain a real
possession of all the people. As to the other matter--the name of the
peak itself,--that may safely be left to the American sense of humor.
But what I have said is due in justice to Winthrop, one of the finest
figures in our literary history. His work in making the peak known
demands that his name, given by local gratitude to one of its
important glaciers, shall not be removed.
[Illustration: Among the ice bridges of the Carbon.]
A word about the industrial value of the Mountain may not be without
interest in this day of electricity. Within a radius of sixty miles of
the head of Puget Sound, more water descends from high levels to the
sea than in any other similar area in the United States. A great part
of this is collected on the largest peak. Hydraulic engineers have
estimated, on investigation, an average annual precipitation, for the
summit and upper slopes, of at least 180 inches, or four times the
rainfall in Tacoma or Seattle. The melting snows feed the White,
Puyallup and Nisqually rivers, large streams flowing into the Sound,
and the Cowlitz, an important tributary of the Columbia. The minimum
flow of these streams is computed at more than 1200 second feet, while
their average flow is nearly twice that total.
The utilization of this large water supply on the steep mountain
slopes began in 1904 with the erection of the Electron plant of the
Puget Sound Power Company. For this the water is diverted from the
Puyallup river ten miles from the end of its glacier, and 1750 feet
above sea level, and carried ten miles more in an open flume to a
reservoir, from which four steel penstocks, each four feet in
diameter, drop it to the power house 900 feet below. The plant
generates 28,000 horse power, which is conveyed to Tacoma, twenty-five
miles distant, at a pressure of 60,000 volts, and there is distributed
for the operation of street railways, lights and factories in that
city and Seattle.
[Illustration {p.109}: Mountain Climbers in Crevasse on Carbon
Glacier.]
A more important development is in progress on the larger White river
near Buckley, where the Pacific Coast Power Company is diverting the
water by a dam and eight-mile canal to Lake Tapps, elevation 540 feet
above tide. From this {p.111} great reservoir it will be taken
through a tunnel and pipe line to the generating plant at Dieringer,
elevation 65 feet. The 100,000 horse power ultimately to be produced
here will be carried fifteen miles to Tacoma, for sale to
manufacturers in the Puget Sound cities.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Building Tacoma's Electric Power Plant on the Nisqually
Canyon. Upper view shows site of retention dam, above tunnel; middle
view, end of tunnel, where pipeline crosses the canyon on a bridge;
lower view, site of the generating plant (see p. 21).]
[Illustration]
Both these plants are enterprises of Stone & Webster, of Boston. A
competitive plant is now nearing completion by the city of Tacoma,
utilizing the third of the rivers emptying into the Sound. The
Nisqually is dammed above its famous canyon, at an elevation of 970
feet, where its minimum flow is 300 second feet. The water will be
carried through a 10,000-foot tunnel and over a bridge to a reservoir
at La Grande, from which the penstocks will carry it down the side of
the canyon {p.112} to the 40,000 horse-power generating plant built
on a narrow shelf a few feet above the river. The city expects to be
able to produce power for its own use, with a considerable margin for
sale, at a cost at least as low as can be attained anywhere in the
United States.
[Illustration: Hydro-electric plant at Electron, on the Puyallup
River, producing 28,000 h. p.]
The rocks of which the Mountain is composed are mainly andesites of
different classes and basalt. But the peak rests upon a platform of
granite, into which the glaciers have cut in their progress. Fine
exposures of the older and harder rock are seen on the Nisqually, just
below the present end of its glacier, as well as on the Carbon and in
Moraine Park. This accounts for the fact that the river beds are full
of granite bowlders, which are grinding the softer volcanic shingle
into soil. Thus the glaciers are not only fast deforming the peak.
They are "sowing the seeds of continents to be."
[Illustration: Cutting canal to divert White River into Lake Tapps.]
{p.113}
[Illustration: Mystic Lake in Moraine Park.]
IV.
THE CLIMBERS.
Climb the mountains, and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.--_John Muir._
Upwards--towards the peaks, towards the stars, and towards the
great silence!--_Ibsen._
Given good muscles and wind, the other requisites for an ascent of the
Mountain are a competent guide and grit. It offers few problems like
those confronting the climber of the older and more crag-like Alps.
There are no perpendicular cliffs to scale, no abysses to swing across
on a rope. If you can stand the punishment of a long up-hill pull,
over loose volcanic talus and the rough ice, you may safely join a
party for Gibraltar Rock and the summit. But the ascent should not be
attempted without first spending some time in "try-outs" on lower
elevations, both to prepare one's muscles for climbing and descending
steep slopes, and to accustom one's lungs to the rarer atmosphere of
high altitudes. Such preparation will save much discomfort, including,
perhaps, a visit of "mountain sickness."
[Illustration: Glacier Table on Winthrop Glacier. This phenomenon is
due to the melting of the glacier, save where sheltered by the rock.
Under the sun's rays, these "tables" incline more and more to the
south, until they slide off their pedestals.]
Another warning must be given to the general tourist. Do not try to
climb the Mountain without guides. The seasoned alpinist, of course,
will trust to previous experience on other peaks, and may find his
climb here comparatively safe and easy. But the fate of {p.115} T.
Y. Callaghan and Joseph W. Stevens, of Trenton, N. J., who perished on
the glaciers in August, 1909, should serve as a warning against
over-confidence. Unless one has intimate acquaintance with the ways of
the great ice peaks, he should never attack such a wilderness of
crevasses and shifting snow-slopes save in company of those who know
its fickle trails.
[Illustration {p.114}: Carbon River below its Gorge, and Mother
Mountains. This range was so named because of a rude resemblance to
the up-turned face of a woman seen here in the sky-line, while the
view of snowy Liberty Cap beyond and the milky whiteness of the stream
gave rise to the pleasing fiction that the Indian name of the peak
meant "nourishing breast." "Tacoma" meant simply the Snow Mountain.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1910, By C. E. Cutter. Oldest and youngest
climbers, Gen. Hazard Stevens and Jesse McRae. General Stevens, with
P. B. Van Trump, in 1870, made the first ascent. In 1905, he came west
from Boston and joined the Mazamas in their climb. The picture shows
him before his tent in Paradise Park. He was then 63 years old.]
Under the experienced guides, many climbers reach Crater Peak each
summer, and no accidents of a serious nature have occurred. The
successful climbers numbered one hundred and fifty-nine in 1910. Many
more go only as far as Gibraltar, or even to McClure Rock (Elevation,
7,385 feet), and are well rewarded by the magnificent views which
these points command of the south-side glaciers and arêtes, with the
ranges lying below. The name "McClure Rock" is a memorial of the
saddest tragedy of the Mountain. Over the slope below this landmark
Prof. Edgar McClure of the University of Oregon fell to his death on
the night of July 27, 1897. He had spent the day in severe scientific
labor on the summit, and was hurrying down in the moonlight, much
wearied, to Reese's Camp for the night. Going ahead of his companions,
to find a safe path for them, he called back that the ice was too
steep. Then there was silence. Either he slipped in trying to
re-ascend the slope, or he fainted from exhaustion. His body was found
on the rocks below by his comrades of the Mazama Club.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1897, By E. S. Curtis. P. B. Van Trump, on
his old campground, above Sluiskin Falls, where he and Gen. Stevens
camped in 1870.]
If one is going the popular route and is equal to so long and unbroken
a climb, he may start with his guide from Reese's before dawn, and be
on Columbia's Crest by 11 o'clock. But climbers frequently go up
Cowlitz Cleaver in the evening, and spend the night at Camp Muir (see
pp. 60 and 80). This ledge below Gibraltar gets its name from John
Muir, the famous mountaineer, who, on his ascent in 1888, suggested it
as a camping place because the presence of pumice indicated the
{p.116} absence of severe winds. It offers none of the conveniences
of a camp save a wind-break, and even in that respect no one has ever
suffered for want of fresh air. It is highly desirable that a cabin be
erected here for the convenience of climbers. Such shelters as the
Alpine clubs have built on the high shoulders of many peaks in
Switzerland are much needed, not only at Muir, but also on the Wedge,
as well as inside one of the craters, where, doubtless a way might be
found to utilize the residuary heat of the volcano for the comfort of
the climbers.
[Illustration: Lower Spray Park, with Mother Mountains beyond. One of
the most beautiful alpine vales in the great Spray Park region.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By J. Edward B. Greene.
John Muir, President of the Sierra Club and foremost of American
mountaineers
"His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."]
Going to the summit by this route, the important thing is to pass
Gibraltar early, before the sun starts the daily shower of icicles and
rocks from the cliff over the narrow trail (see p. 83). This is the
most dangerous point, but no lives have been lost here. Everywhere, of
course, caution is needed, and strict obedience to the {p.117} guide.
Once up the steep flume caused by the melting of the ice where it
borders the rock (p. 85), the climber threads his way among the
crevasses and snow-mounds for nearly two miles, until the crater is
reached (pp. 86, 88, 89).
[Illustration: Coasting in Moraine Park in the August sunshine.]
The east-side route (p. 100) involves less danger, perhaps, but it is
a longer climb, with no resting places or wind-breaks. It has been
used less, because it is farther from Paradise Valley. Starting from a
night's encampment on the Wedge (p. 97), parties descend to White
glacier, and, over its steep incline of dazzling ice, gain the summit
in eight or nine hours.
[Illustration: Sunset on Crater Lake, north of Spray Park, with the
Mountain in distance.]
The first attempt to scale the Mountain was made in 1857 by Lieutenant
(later General) A. V. Kautz. There is no foundation for the claim
sometimes heard that Dr. W. F. Tolmie, Hudson's Bay Company agent at
Fort Nisqually, who made a botanizing trip to the lower slopes in
1833, attempted the peak. Lieutenant Kautz, with two companions from
fort Steilacoom, climbed the arête between the glacier now named after
him and the Nisqually glacier, but fearing a night on the summit, and
knowing nothing of the steam caves in the crater, he turned back when
probably at the crest of the south peak. Writing in the _Overland
Monthly_ for May, 1875, he says that, "although there were points
higher yet, the {p.120} Mountain spread out comparatively flat,"
having the form of "a ridge perhaps two miles in length, with an angle
about half-way, and depressions between the angle and each end of the
ridge, which gave the summit the appearance of three small peaks."
[Illustration {p.118}: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. Amphitheatre
of Carbon Glacier, the most noteworthy example of glacial sculpture
upon the Mountain. It is nearly three miles wide. No other glacier has
cut so deeply into the side of the peak. The Carbon was once two
glaciers, separated by a ridge, of which a remnant is still seen in
the huge spine of rock extending down from Liberty Cap.]
[Illustration {p.119}: Photo By Lea Bronson. Copyright, 1909, By P. V.
Caesar. Avalanche falling on Willis Wall, at head of Carbon Glacier
amphitheatre. The cliff, up to the snow cap on the summit, is more
than 4,000 feet high and nearly perpendicular. Avalanches fall every
day, but this picture of a big one in action is probably unique.
Willis Wall was named for Bailey Willis, the geologist.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By A. H. Waite. Birth of Carbon
River, with part of Willis Wall visible in distance. The great height
of this ice front appears on noting the man near the river.]
It was not until August 17, 1870, thirteen years after Kautz's partial
victory, that the Mountain was really conquered. This was by P. B. Van
Trump of Yelm and Hazard Stevens, son of the first governor of
Washington, who had distinguished himself in the Civil War, and was
then living at Olympia as a Federal revenue officer. Each of these
pioneers on the summit has published an interesting account of how
they got there, General Stevens in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for
November, 1876, and Mr. Van Trump in the second volume of _Mazama_. In
Stevens's article, "The Ascent of Takhoma," his acquaintance with the
Indians of the early territorial period, gives weight to this note:
Tak-ho-ma or Ta-ho-ma among the Yakimas, Klickitats, Puyallups,
Nisquallys and allied tribes is the generic term for mountain,
used precisely as we use the word "Mount," as Takhoma Wynatchie,
or Mount Wynatchie. But they all designate Rainier simply as
Takhoma, or The Mountain, just as the mountain men used to call
it "Old He."
Sluiskin, an Indian celebrity whom they employed as a guide, led the
young men the longest and hardest way, taking them over the Tatoosh
mountains instead of directly up the Nisqually and Paradise canyons.
From the summit of that range, they at last looked across the Paradise
valley, and beheld the great peak "directly in front, filling up the
whole view with an indescribable aspect of magnitude {p.121} and
grandeur." Below them lay "long green ridges projected from the snow
belt, with deep valleys between, each at its upper end forming the bed
of a glacier."
[Illustration: The Mountaineers building trail on the lateral moraine
of Carbon Glacier. Without such trails, the "tenderfoot" would fare
badly.]
Descending from the Tatoosh, the explorers camped near a waterfall
which they named Sluiskin Falls, in honor of their guide. Sluiskin now
endeavored, in a long oration, to dissuade them from their folly.
Avalanches and winds, he said, would sweep them from the peak, and
even if they should reach the summit, the awful being dwelling there
would surely punish their sacrilege. Finding his oratory vain, he
chanted a dismal dirge till late in the night, and next morning took
solemn leave of them.
[Illustration: The Mountaineers lunching in a crevasse on White
Glacier, 13,000 feet above the sea, on their ascent in 1909. Even
Little Tahoma, on the left, is far below.]
Stevens describes their ascent by the now familiar path, over Cowlitz
Cleaver and past Gibraltar. From the top of that "vast, square rock
embedded in the side of the Mountain," they turned west over the upper
snow-fields, and thus first reached the southern peak, which they
named "Peak Success," to commemorate their victory.
This is a long, exceedingly sharp, narrow ridge, springing out
from the main dome for a mile into mid-air. On the right, the
snow descended in a steep, unbroken sheet into the tremendous
{p.124} basin which lies between the southern and the northern
peaks, and which is enclosed by them as by two mighty arms.[6]
Sheltered behind a pinnacle of ice, we fastened our flags upon
the Alpine staffs, and then, standing erect in the furious blast,
waved them in triumph with three cheers.
[Footnote 6: See illustration, page 14.]
[Illustration {p.122}: Looking southeast from Mt. Rose, above Eunice
Lake, with Mother Mountains on left, and Spray Park in distance on
right of center. Shows outposts of alpine firs and hemlocks on the
timber line.]
[Illustration {p.123}: Looking south from Mt. Rose, across Crater Lake
to North Mowich Glacier and Mowich Ridge. This was taken from near the
same place as the preceding view, and eight miles from the Mountain.
Eagle Cliff, a celebrated view point, is on the right, overlooking
Mowich canyon.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. Looking up Mowich
Valley. One of the densely wooded regions in the National Park that
need trails as a means of protection against fires.]
It was now five o'clock. They had spent eleven hours in the ascent,
and knowing it would be impossible to descend before nightfall, they
saw nothing to do but burrow in the loose rock and spend the night as
best they could. The middle peak, however, was evidently higher, and
they determined first to visit it. Climbing the long ridge and over
the rim of the crater, they found jets of steam and smoke issuing from
vents on the north side.
Never was a discovery more welcome! Hastening forward, we both
exclaimed, as we warmed our benumbed extremities over one of
Pluto's fires, that here we would pass the night, secure against
freezing to death, at least.... A deep cavern extended under the
ice. Forty feet within its mouth we built a wall of stones around
a jet of steam. Inclosed within this shelter, we ate our lunch
and warmed ourselves at our natural register. The heat at the
orifice was too great to bear for more than an instant. The steam
wet us, the smell of sulphur was nauseating, and the cold was so
severe that our clothes froze stiff when turned away from the
heated jet. We passed a miserable night, freezing on one side and
in a hot steam-sulphur bath on the other.
In October of the same year, S. F. Emmons and A. D. Wilson, of the
Geological Survey, reached the snow-line by way of the Cowlitz valley
and glacier, and ascended the peak over the same route which Stevens
and Van Trump had discovered and which has since been the popular path
to Crater Peak. The Kautz route, by the cleaver between Kautz and
Nisqually glaciers, has recently been found {p.125} practicable,
though extremely difficult. In 1891 and again the next summer, Mr. Van
Trump made an ascent along the ridge dividing the Tahoma glaciers. In
1905, Raglan Glascock and Ernest Dudley, members of the Sierra Club
party visiting the Mountain, climbed the Kautz glacier, and finding
their way barred by ice cascades, reached the summit by a thrilling
rock climb over the cliff above the South Tahoma glacier. This
precipice (see p. 37) they found to be a series of rock terraces,
often testing the strength and nerve of the climbers. In _Sunset
Magazine_ for November, 1895, Mr. Glascock has told the story of their
struggle and reward.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. Spray Falls, a
splendid scenic feature of the north side, where it drops more than
five hundred feet from the Spray Park table-land into the canyon of
North Mowich Glacier.]
Here the basalt terminated, and a red porous formation began,
which crumbled in the hand. This part of the cliff lay a little
out from the perpendicular, and there was apparently no way of
surmounting it. I looked at my watch. It was 4:15. In a flash the
whole situation came to me. It would be impossible to return and
cross the crevasses before dark. We could not stay where we were.
Already the icy wind cut to the bone.
"We must make it. There is no going back," I said to Dudley. I
gave him the ice ax, and started to the ascent of the remaining
cliff. I climbed six feet, and was helpless. I could not get
back, nor go forward. One of my feet swung loose, and I felt my
hands slipping. Then I noticed above me, about six or eight
inches to my right a sharp, projecting rock. It was here or
never. I gave a swing, and letting go my feet entirely, I reached
the rock. It held, and I was swinging by my hands over a
two-hundred-foot void. I literally glued myself to the face of
the rock, searching frantically for knob or crevasse with my
feet. By sheer luck, my toe found a small projection, and from
here I gradually worked myself up until I came to a broken cleft
in the cliff where it was possible to brace myself and lower the
rope to Dudley. This last ascent had only been fifteen feet, and,
in reality, had taken but three or four minutes, but to me it
seemed hours.
At 7:45, we reached the summit of the south peak. Here we stopped
to look down on Camp Sierra. Long shadows spread their mantle
across the glaciers, and in the east lay the phantom {p.126}
mountain--the shadow of Rainier. A flash of light attracted our
attention. We saw that our companions had been watching our
progress.
[Illustration: A rescue from a crevasse.]
The White glacier route on the east side was first used in 1885 by a
party from Snohomish. The same glacier was traversed by the
Willis-Russell party in 1896. The first woman to make the ascent was
Miss Fay Fuller, of Tacoma, in 1890, over the Gibraltar route.
The north and northwest sides, as I have said, are as yet unconquered.
Some members of the Mountaineers have a theory that the summit can be
reached from Avalanche Camp by climbing along the face of Russell
Peak, and so around to the upper snowfield of Winthrop glacier. They
have seen mountain goats making the trip, and propose to try it
themselves. Whether they succeed or not, this trail will never be
popular, owing to daily landslides in the loose rock of the cliff.
[Illustration: Returning from the summit. The Mountaineers ending a
memorable outing in 1909. Winthrop Glacier in foreground, Sluiskin
Mountains in distance.]
In 1897 and 1905, the Mazama Club of Portland sent parties to the
Mountain, each making the ascent over the Gibraltar route. The Sierra
Club of California was also represented in the latter year by a
delegation of climbers who took the same path to the summit. In 1909,
the Mountaineers Club of Seattle spent several weeks on the Mountain,
entering the National Park by the Carbon trail, camping in Moraine
Park on the north side, exploring Spray Park and the Carbon glacier,
crossing Winthrop glacier to the Wedge, and thence climbing White
glacier to the summit. Many members of the Appalachian Club and
American Alpine Clubs and of European organizations of similar purpose
have climbed to Crater Peak, either in company with the Western clubs
named, or in smaller parties. Noteworthy accounts of these ascents
have been printed in the publications of the several clubs, as well as
in magazines of wider circulation, and have done much to make the
Mountain known to the public. The principal articles are cited in a
bibliographical note at the end of this volume.
[Illustration {p.128}: Looking down from Ptarmigan Ridge into the
Canyon of the North Mowich Glacier and up to the cloud-wreathed Peak.]
{p.129}
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. View looking west
across Moraine Park and Carbon Glacier to Mother Mountains.]
V.
THE FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES.
By PROF. J. B. FLETT.[7]
[Footnote 7: Prof. Flett knows the Mountain well. He has
spent many summers in its "parks," has climbed to its
summit four times, has visited all its glaciers, and has
made a remarkable collection of its flowers. In addition
to the chapter on the botany of the National Park, this
book is indebted to him for several of its most valuable
illustrations.]
Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along
the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest in form. Its
massive white dome rises out of its forests, like a world by
itself. Above the forests there is a zone of the loveliest
flowers, fifty miles in circuit and nearly two miles wide, so
closely planted and luxuriant that it seems as if Nature, glad to
make an open space between woods so dense and ice so deep, were
economizing the precious ground, and trying to see how many of
her darlings she can get together in one mountain
wreath--daisies, anemones, columbines, erythroniums, larkspurs,
etc., among which we wade knee-deep and waist-deep, the bright
corollas in myriads touching petal to petal. Altogether this is
the richest subalpine garden I ever found, a perfect floral
elysium.--_John Muir: "Our National Parks."_
No one can visit the Mountain without being impressed by its wild
flowers. These are the more noticeable because of their high color--a
common characteristic of flowers in alpine regions. As we visit the
upland meadows at a season when the spring flowers of the lowlands
have gone to seed, we find there another spring season with flowers in
still greater number and more varied in color.
[Illustration: Senecio.]
The base of the Mountain up to an altitude of about 4,000 feet is
covered by a somber forest of evergreens composed of the white and
black pines; Douglas, Lovely and Noble firs; the white cedar; spruce,
and hemlock. There are found also several deciduous trees--large-leafed
maple, {p.130} white alder, cottonwood, quaking aspen, vine and
smooth-leafed maples, and several species of willows. Thus the silva
of the lower slopes is highly varied. The forest is often interrupted
by the glacial canyons, and, at intervals, by fire-swept areas.
[Illustration: A 14-foot Fir, near Mineral Lake.]
Among these foothills and valleys, lies the region of the virgin
forest. This area is characterized by huge firs and cedars, all tall,
straight and graceful, without a limb for 75 to 100 feet. This is
probably the most valuable area of timber in the world, and it is one
of the grandest parts of the Park. A death-like silence generally
pervades this cool, dark region, where few kinds of animal life find a
congenial abode. Occasionally the stillness is disturbed by the
Douglas squirrel, busily gnawing off the fir cones for his winter's
supply, or by the gentle flutter of the coy wren, darting to and fro
among the old, fallen logs. The higher forms of vegetable life are
also restricted to a few odd varieties. The most common of these are
such saprophytes as _pterospora andromedea_, _allotropa virgata_, the
so-called barber's pole, and the Indian pipe. This curious, waxy white
plant is generally admired by all who see it, but it quickly
disappoints those admirers who gather it by turning black.
The mosses, liverworts, and lichens take possession of the trees and
cover them with a unique decoration. The licorice fern often gains a
foothold on the trees thus decorated, and grows luxuriantly, embedded
in the deep growth of these plants.
It is nearly impossible to get through this region without following a
road or trail. For the safety of its priceless forest, there are far
too few trails. In case of a forest fire it would be impossible to
reach some areas in time to combat it with any success. Many beautiful
regions in the lower parts of the Park are {p.131} wholly
inaccessible. These should be opened with proper roads and trails, not
only for their own safety, but also for the benefit of visitors.
[Illustration: Indian Pipe.]
The alpine meadows begin to appear at an altitude of about 5,000 feet.
The real alpine trees, with their trim, straight trunks and drooping
branches, are in strange contrast to their relatives of the lower
altitude. The principal trees of the meadow area are the alpine fir,
the alpine hemlock, and the Alaska cedar. These constitute the greater
part of the silva of Paradise Valley. There are a few trees of the
Lovely fir in the lower part of the valley, and a few white-barked
pines overlooking the glaciers at timber line.
[Illustration: Floral Carpet in Indian Henry's Park, showing "Mountain
Heliotrope," more properly Valerian, and other flowers growing near
the snow line.]
[Illustration {p.132}: Mosses and Ferns, in the forest reserve, on way
to Longmire Springs.]
{p.133}
[Illustration: A bank of White Heather.]
The trees of the park zone differ greatly on different slopes. On the
northeast and east, the white-barked pine and the alpine spruce form
no small part of the tree groups. The white-barked pine branches out
like the scrub oak on the prairie. It is never seen at a low altitude.
The alpine spruce bears numerous cones all over the tree, and has
sharp leaves, though not so sharp as its relative, the tideland
spruce.
[Illustration: Hellebore (Veratrum Viride).]
Not only is there a difference in the trees on the different slopes of
the Mountain, but there is a marked difference in the herbaceous
plants as well. _Hesperogenia Strictlandi_ is a small, yellow plant of
the celery family. This is very abundant, both in Spray Park and also
in the country east of the Carbon Glacier, but rare on the south side.
_Gilia Nuttallii_, a large, phlox-like plant, is abundant only in the
Indian Henry region. Two anemones, one buttercup, three willows and
one senecio seem to be confined to the White River country. The moss
campion has been found only on Mowich.
The most noticeable and abundant flower on all slopes is the avalanche
lily (_erythronium montanum_). This plant comes up through several
inches of the old snow crust, and forms beautiful beds of pure white
flowers, to the exclusion of nearly all other plants. There are often
from seven to nine blossoms on a stem. This has other popular names,
such as deer-tongue and adder-tongue. There is also a yellow species,
growing with the other, but less abundant. It seldom has more than one
{p.134} or two flowers on a stem. The yellow alpine buttercup
generally grows with the erythroniums. It also tries to rush the
season by coming up through the snow. The western anemone is a little
more deliberate, but is found quite near the snow. It may be known by
its lavender, or purple flowers; and later by its large plume-like
heads, which are no less admired than the flowers themselves.
[Illustration: Alpine Hemlock and Mountain Lilies. In the struggle for
existence at the timber line, flowers prosper, but trees fight for
life against storm and snow.]
The plants just mentioned are the harbingers of spring. Following them
in rapid succession are many plants of various hues. The mountain
dock, mountain dandelion, and potentilla seldom fail to appear later.
The asters, often wrongly called daisies, are represented by several
species, some of which blossom early, and are at their best along with
the spring flowers. The great majority of the composite family bloom
later, and thus prolong the gorgeous array. The lupines add much to
the beauty of this meadow region, both at a low altitude, and also in
the region above timber line. Their bright purple flowers, in long
racemes, with palmate leaves, are very conspicuous on the grassy
slopes. Between timber line and 8,500 feet, Lyall's lupine grows in
dense silk mats, with dark purple flowers--the most beautiful plant in
that zone.
[Illustration: Mountain Asters.]
Four different kinds of heather are found on the Mountain. The red
heather is the largest and the most abundant. It grows at a lower
altitude than the others, and is sometimes, erroneously, called Scotch
heather. There are two kinds of white heather. One forms a prominent
part of the {p.135} flora, often growing with the red. The other is
less conspicuous and grows about timber line. The yellow heather also
grows at the same altitude, and is larger and more common than the
others. It often forms beautiful areas where other vegetation is rare.
The white rhododendron is a beautiful shrub of the lower meadows. Its
creamy white blossoms remind one of the cultivated azalea. There are
several huckleberries, some with large bushes growing in the lower
forest area, others small and adapted to the grassy meadows.
[Illustration: Studying the Phlox.]
[Illustration: Squaw Grass, or Mountain Lily. (Xerophyllum tenax)]
The figwort family has many and curious representatives. The
rose-purple monkey-flower is very common and conspicuous in the lower
meadows, along the streams. It is nearly always accompanied by the
yellow fireweed. Higher up, large meadow areas are arrayed in bright
yellow by the alpine monkey-flower. Above timber line, two
pentstemons, with matted leaves and short stems with brilliant purple
and red flowers, cover large rocky patches, mixed here and there with
lavender beds of the alpine phlox; while the amber rays of the golden
aster, scattered through these variegated beds, lend their {p.136}
charm to the rocky ridges. The Indian paint-brush, the speedwell, the
elephant's trunk, and the pigeon bills are all well-known members of
the large figwort family which does much to embellish the Mountain
meadows. The valerian, often wrongly called "mountain heliotrope," is
very common on the grassy slopes. Its odor can often be detected
before it is seen. The rosy spiraea, the mountain ash, and the wild
currant, are three common shrubs in this area. There are also numerous
small herbaceous plants of the saxifrage family, some forming dense
mats to the exclusion of other plants. The mertensias, polemoniums,
and shooting stars add much to the purple and blue coloring.
[Illustration: Avalanche Lilies (Erythronium montanum), sometimes
called deer tongues, forcing their way through the lingering snow.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. Moraine Park,
Sluiskin Mountains and Mystic Lake.]
Two liliaceous plants of low altitude are always objects of marked
interest. The Clintonia, popularly called alpine beauty, begins in the
forest area, and continues up to the lower meadows. This may be known
by its pure white blossoms and blue berries. Its leaves are oblong in
tufts of from two to four. They spring up near the roots. The other is
xerophyllum, mountain lily, sometimes called squaw grass, because it
is used by the Indians in basket making. This has tall {p.138} stems
with small fragrant flowers and coarse grass-like leaves.
[Illustration {p.137}: Sunrise in Indian Henry's Park, with view of
the southwest slope and Peak Success, showing Purple Asters, with
bunches of Hellebore in center of the flower field.]
[Illustration: Anemone Seed Pods.]
The orchid family has a few curious saprophytic representatives on the
lower slopes. Mertin's coral-root is one of the most common. This
generally grows in clusters in the mossy woods, along the trail or
government road above Longmire Springs. It is very common all around
the mountain at an altitude of 3,000 to 4,500 feet. With it, grow two
tway-blades and the rattlesnake plantain. In bogs, two species of
piperia, with long spikes of greenish flowers, are abundant. In drier
situations, a small form of the ladies' tresses is easily recognized
by its spiral spike of small white flowers, which are more or less
fragrant. In some of the swamps at the base of the mountain grows
_Limnorchis leucostachys_. This is one of our most fragrant flowers,
as well as one of the most beautiful, with its long spike of pure
white blossoms.
Of the ferns, the common brake is sometimes seen on the slopes near
the terminal moraines of the glaciers. On the old moraines and cliffs
is found the pea fern (_cryptogramma acrostichoides_), so called
because the pinnules of its fruiting fronds resemble those of a pea
pod. This dainty little fern with its two kinds of fronds is always
admired by mountain visitors. It is strictly a mountain fern. The deer
fern also has two kinds of fronds, but this grows all the way from sea
level to the glaciers, being at its best in the dense forest area. The
delicate oak fern grows in great abundance from Eatonville to the
timber line, and probably does more to beautify the woods than any
other fern. The sword fern grows in dense, radiate clusters, all
through the mossy woods. The fronds are often five or six feet in
length. The maidenhair fern is found along streams, waterfalls and
moist cliffs, reaching its highest development in the deep canyons cut
through the dense forest.
On the very top of Pinnacle Peak and similar elevations, grows the
beautiful mountain lace fern (_cheilanthes gracillima._) Nearly every
tourist presses a souvenir of it in his notebook. _Phegopteris
alpesteris_ is abundant along the glacial valleys, where the tall
grasses and the beautiful array of alpine plants delight the eye.
These ferns and grasses give a rich green color to the varigated
slopes where nature blends so many harmonious colors in matchless
grandeur in this great fairyland of flowers.
{p.139}
[Illustration: Wind Swept Trees on North Side, the last below the Snow
line.]
The writer has a list of about three hundred and sixty species from
the Mountain. It includes only flowering plants and ferns. There are
more than twenty type species named from the Mountain, not a few of
which are found nowhere else. Its geographical position makes it the
boundary between the arctic plants from the North and the plants of
Oregon and California from the South. Its great altitude has a
wonderful effect on plant life. This is seen in the trees at timber
line, where snow rests upon them for months. Their prostrate trunks
and gnarled branches give ample testimony to their extreme struggle
for existence. Where the ordinary plants cease to exist the snowy
protococcus holds undisputed sway on the extensive snow fields. This
is a small one-celled microscopic plant having a blood red color in
one stage of its existence. Even in the crater, on the warm rocks of
the rim, will be found three or four mosses--I have noted one there
which is not found anywhere else--several lichens, and at least one
liverwort.
[Illustration: Lupines.]
{p.140}
[Illustration: Copyright, 1910, by E. F. Cutter. The Mountain, as seen
from a high ridge in the Cascades near Green River Hot Springs,
showing the north and east faces of the Peak, and Little Tahoma on the
left.]
NOTES.
Rates, Trains, Hotel Accommodations.--The round-trip fare from Tacoma
via the Tacoma Eastern is $6.00. This includes railway transportation
to Ashford and automobile-stage ride from Ashford to Longmire Springs
and return. Tickets are good for the season. To parties of ten or more
traveling together a single ticket is issued at $5.00 per capita. A
week-end ticket, Saturday to Monday, is sold at $5.00. The rates from
Seattle to the Springs are $1.50 more, in each case, than the Tacoma
rates. The train schedule for 1911 follows:
SOUTHBOUND
Leave Seattle 7.45 A.M. and 12.30 P.M.
Arrive Tacoma 8.55 A.M. and 1.40 P.M.
Leave Tacoma 9.05 A.M. and 1.50 P.M.
Arrive Ashford 11.20 A.M. and 4.05 P.M.
Leave Ashford 11.30 A.M. and 4.15 P.M.
Arrive at Inn 12.45 P.M. and 5.30 P.M.
NORTHBOUND
Leave Inn 7.15 A.M. and 1.30 P.M.
Arrive Ashford 8.30 A.M. and 2.45 P.M.
Leave Ashford 8.40 A.M. and 2.55 P.M.
Arrive Tacoma 10.55 A.M. and 5.10 P.M.
Leave Tacoma 11.05 A.M. and 5.15 P.M.
Arrive Seattle 12.15 P.M. and 6.30 P.M.
The National Park Inn, Longmire Springs, provides excellent rooms in
the Inn, with a large number of well-furnished and comfortable tents
near by. The rates range from $2.50 to $3.75 a day, including meals.
The dining-room is under the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound
dining-car management, which insures a satisfactory table.
At the older Longmire Hotel, the rate is $2.50 a day for room and
board. This hotel is open all the year, and in winter is much
frequented by persons seeking Winter sports, or making use of the
mineral springs.
The springs are of great variety, and are highly recommended for their
medicinal virtues. Within an area of several acres, there are a score
of these springs, varying from the normal temperature of a mountain
stream almost to blood heat. Well-appointed bathhouses are maintained.
Fee, including attendance, $1.00.
At Reese's Camp, in Paradise Park, and at Mrs. Hall's similar tent
hotel in Indian Henry's Park, the charge for meals, with a tent for
sleeping, is $2.50 per day.
Stages, Horses, Guides.--The cost of getting from Longmire Springs to
Paradise or Indian Henry's is moderate. Many prefer to make the trips
on foot over the mountain trails. Parties are made up several times a
day, under experienced guides, for each of these great "parks," and
sure-footed horses are provided for those who wish to ride, at $1.50
for the round trip. Guides and horses for the new trail to Eagle Peak
are at the same rate. Guides may be had at the {p.141} National Park
Inn or at either of the "camps" for many interesting trips over the
mountain trails. Horses also are furnished. The charge varies with the
number in a party.
Stages carry passengers from the Inn over the government road to
Nisqually glacier, Narada Falls and Reese's Camp in Paradise Park. The
charge for the trip to Narada and return is $2.00; to Paradise and
return, $3.00.
For those who wish to make the ascent to the summit over the Gibraltar
trail, trustworthy guides may be engaged at the Inn or at Reese's.
Arrangements should be made several days in advance. The cost of such
a trip depends upon the number in a party. The guides make a charge of
$25 for the first member of the party, and $5 each for the others.
They furnish alpenstocks, ropes, and calks for the shoes of climbers
at a reasonable charge. Each person should carry with him a blanket or
extra coat and a small amount of food, for use in the event of being
on the summit over night. Still heavier clothing will be required if
the night is to be spent at Camp Muir. A sleeping-bag, which can be
easily made, or purchased at any outfitter's, will prove invaluable to
campers. Ascents from other points than Reese's are usually made in
special parties. All persons are warned not to attempt an ascent
unless accompanied by experienced guides. Lives have been lost through
neglect of this precaution.
For persons visiting the North Side, the Northern Pacific rate from
Tacoma to Fairfax is $1.25, and from Seattle to Fairfax, with change
of cars at Puyallup, $1.75. Guides and horses may be engaged at
Fairfax for the Spray Park trail.
Automobiles and Motorcycles.--These vehicles are permitted to use the
government road, as far as the Nisqually glacier, under the following
regulations of the Interior Department:
No automobile or motorcycle will be permitted within the Park unless
its owner secures a written permit from the Superintendent, Edward S.
Hall, Ashford, Washington, or his representative. Applications must
show: Names of owner and driver, number of machine, and inclusive
dates for which permit is desired, not exceeding one year, and be
accompanied by a fee of $5 for each automobile and $1 for each
motorcycle. All permits will expire on December 31. Permits must be
presented to the Superintendent or his authorized representatives at
the park entrance on the government road.
Automobiles and motorcycles will be permitted on the government road
west of Longmire Springs between the hours of 7 A.M. and 8.30 P.M.,
but no automobile or motorcycle shall enter the Park or leave Longmire
Springs in the direction of the western boundary, later than 8 P.M.,
the use of automobiles and motorcycles to be permitted between
Longmire Springs and Nisqually glacier between the hours of 9 A.M.
and 9.30 P.M., but no automobile or motorcycle shall leave Longmire
Springs in the direction of the glacier later than 7 P.M.
When teams, saddle horses, or pack trains approach, automobiles and
motorcycles shall take position on the outer edge of the roadway,
taking care that sufficient room is left on the inside for them to
pass, and remaining at rest until they have passed, or until the
drivers are satisfied regarding the safety of their horses. Horses
have the right of way, and automobiles and motorcycles will be backed
or otherwise handled to enable horses to pass with safety.
Speed shall be limited to 6 miles per hour, except on straight
stretches where approaching teams, saddle horses, and pack trains will
be visible, when, if none are in sight, this speed may be increased to
the rate indicated on signboards along the road; in no event, however,
shall it exceed 15 miles per hour. Signal with horn shall be given at
or near every bend to announce to approaching drivers the proximity of
a machine.
Violation of any of the foregoing rules, or the general regulations of
the Park, will cause the revocation of permit, subject the owner of
the automobile or motorcycle to any damages occasioned thereby and to
ejectment from the reservation, and be cause for refusal to issue a
new permit without prior sanction in writing from the Secretary of the
Interior.
Literature of the Mountain.--Vancouver, Winthrop, Kautz, Stevens and
Van Trump have been noted in the text. Other early accounts of, or
references to, the Mountain may be found in _Wilkes: Narrative U. S.
exploring expedition_. Phil. 1845, v. 4, 413, 415, 424; _U. S. War
Dep't: Explorations for railroad to Pacific, 1853-4_, v. 1, 192;
_Gibbs: Journal Am. Geog. Soc._, v. 4, 354-357. {p.142} Gibbs's
Indian vocabularies, published at different dates, were reprinted four
years after his death in _Contributions to Am. Ethnol._, v. 1. Wash.
1877.
For Emmons's account of his exploration in 1870, see _Bulletin Am.
Geog. Soc._ v. 9, 44-61. _Am. Jour. of Science_, v. 101, 157-167, and
_Nation_ v. 23, 313. Prof. Israel C. Russell's studies of the peak are
in _U. S. geol. survey, 5th an. rep._ 335-339 and _18th an. rep., part
2_, 349-415. See also his _Glaciers of N. Am._, Bost. 1901, 62-67, and
_Volcanoes of N. Am._, Bost. 1895, 241-246. For other accessible
studies consult _Wright: Ice age in N. Am. N. Y._ 1889, and _Muir: Our
national parks_, Bost. 1901.
The long controversy over the name of the peak is impartially reviewed
in _Snowden: History of Washington_. N. Y. 1909, v. 4, 249-254.
Snowden calls especial attention to an able paper by the late Thaddeus
Hanford of Olympia on the Indian names and recommending the name
Tacoma for the Territory, which was printed in the _Washington
Standard_ in January, 1866. This article should be reprinted by the
State Historical Society, as it represents a movement of considerable
force at one time against the inept and confusing name adopted for the
State. The Indian evidence for the native name of the Mountain was
collected in _Wickersham: Is it "Mt. Tacoma" or "Mt. Rainier?"_,
pamphlet, Tacoma, 1893. The argument of an eminent traveler and author
against "Mt. Rainier" may be found in _Finck: Pacific coast scenic
tour_. N. Y. 1891, 209-213, 229-230; also in the same writer's more
recent article, _Scribner's Magazine_, v. 47, 234-5. See also _Lyman:
The Columbia river_. N. Y. 1909, p. 32, 352-370, and _The Mountains of
Washington_, in _The Mountaineer_, v. 1, 7-10; and Charles F. Lummis's
editorial articles in _Out West_, v. 23, 367 and 494. On the other
hand, Prof. Davidson, in _Sierra Club Bulletin_, v. 6, 87-98, presents
reasons on which that club accepted "Mt. Rainier."
_Wheeler: Climbing Mt. Rainier_, St. Paul, 1895, and _Plummer:
Illustrated guide book to Mt. Tacoma_, Tacoma, n. d., are two
pamphlets now out of print.
The ascents by the Mazama, Sierra and Mountaineers clubs have
furnished material for a great variety of articles on the geology,
botany and glacier action, as well as many accounts of climbing
adventures. _Mazama_, v. 2, _Sierra Club Bulletin_, v. 6, and _The
Mountaineer_, v. 1 and 2, are mainly devoted to this peak. For
articles in periodicals of wider circulation, see _Review of Reviews_,
v. 9, 163-171 (by Carl Snyder); _Out West_, v. 24, 365-395 (Willoughby
Rodman); _National geog. mag._, v. 20, 530-538 (Milnor Roberts);
_Scribner's_ v. 22, 169-171 (I. C. Russell); _Outing_, v. 5, 323-332
(J. R. W. Hitchcock), and v. 38, 386-392 (Ada Woodruff Anderson);
_Overland_, n. s., v. 2, 300-312 (W. D. Lyman), v. 8, 266-278 (George
Bailey), v. 32, 114-123 (J. P. Montgomery), v. 46, 447-455 (Harry H.
Brown), v. 55, 552-560 (A. W. McCully), and v. 56, 150-155 (A. W.
McCully); _Pacific monthly_, v. 8, 196-202 (John Muir); _The world
today_, v. 9, 1047-53 (Anne Shannon Monroe); _Good words_, v. 42,
101-114 (Arthur Inkersley); _Appalachia_, v. 7, 185-205 (Ernest C.
Smith), and v. 11, 114-125 (W. A. Brooks); _Country life in Am._, v.
14, 170-171 (C. E. Cutter); _The Northwest_, v. 1, 2-10 (Bailey
Willis); _Outdoor life_, v. 26, 15-24 (Edna Cadwallader). Special
studies of the rocks of the peak may be found in _U. S. geol. sur.,
12th an. rep. pt. 1_, 612 (J. P. Iddings), and in _Neues Jahrbuch_, v.
1, 222-226, Stuttgart, 1885 (K. Oebeke).
[Illustration: Glacial debris on lower part of Winthrop Glacier, with
Sluiskin Mountains beyond.]
{p.143} INDEX.
Figures in light face type refer to the text, those in the heavier
type to illustrations.
Adams, Mount, 77, 86, 64, 66.
Allen, Prof. O. D., cottage, 49.
Alta Vista, 49, 60.
American Alpine Club, 126.
Anemones, 32;
seed pods, 138.
Appalachian Club, 126.
Ascents, Kautz, 117;
Stevens and Van Trump, 120-4;
Emmons and Wilson, 124;
Glascock and Dudley, 125;
the mountain clubs, 126.
Automobiles, 57, 70-72, 141, 41, 49, 54.
Avalanche on Willis Wall, 119.
Avalanche Camp, 103, 104, 105.
Avalanche Lilies, 136.
Baker, Mount, 86, 98, 99.
Ballinger, Richard, H. 75.
Basaltic Columns,--South Mowich, 23;
on Cowlitz, 93.
Bashford, Herbert,--verse, 17.
Bee Hive, 76, 80.
Beljica, view from, 27.
Brooks, Francis,--verse, 40.
Cabins needed on the ridges, 116, 144.
Camp of the Clouds, 49, 61, 60.
Carbon river, 50, 103, 114.
Cascade Mountains, 66, 87, 90, 96.
Cathedral Rocks, 85, 76, 84, 78.
Chittenden, Maj. H. M., urges trail, 69.
Columbia's Crest, 86, 88, 52, 78.
Commencement Bay, 28.
Congress, action affecting the Park, 58, 59, 67, 70.
Cowlitz Chimneys, 43, 78, 81.
Cowlitz Cleaver, 85, 76, 78, 81.
Cowlitz Park, 64, 93.
Crater, 50, 88, 89.
Crater Lake, 117.
Crater Peak, 13, 86, 60, 89.
Curtis, Camp, on the Wedge, 97.
Cushman, Francis W., 59, 108.
Dudley, Ernest, 125.
Eagle Cliff, 51.
Eagle Peak (Simlayshe), 30, 31;
new trail to, 141.
Eagle Rock in winter, 7.
East-side route to summit, 117, 126, 100.
Edmunds, George F., 96.
Electric-power development, 108-112.
Electron, The Mountain from, 13, 19;
Power plant at, 108, 112.
Emmons, S. F., Geologist, 94-97.
Fairfax, trail from, 50.
Fair Mountaineer, A, 35.
Fairy Falls, 73.
Fay Peak, 51, 92.
Ferns, 132.
Fires, danger of forest, 8, 58, 130.
Flett, Prof., J. B., 129, n.
Flint, Frank P., U. S. Senator, 75.
Flood, Indian legend of the, 39.
Fox Island, the Mountain from, 14.
Fountain, Paul, quoted, 43.
Fuller, Miss Fay, 126, 72.
Gap Point, 61, 54.
"Ghost Trees," 50.
Gibbs, George, on name "Mt. Tacoma," 104, 107, 142.
Gibraltar Rock, 82, 85, 116, 121, 60, 68, 71, 76, 78, 81, 82, 83,
85, 86.
Glaciers, their number and work, 79-83;
moraines, 83, 68, 77, 79, 96;
rate of flow, 83, 72;
names, 93-97;
rivers, 108;
--Carbon, 50, 51, 77, 103, 105, 107, 108, 118, 119, 120, 121, 129;
--Cowlitz, 50, 93, 6, 51, 78, 81, 84, 87;
--Frying-Pan, 93, 41, 96, 97;
--Ingraham, 93, 78;
--Interglacier, 93, 98, 99;
--Kautz, 93, 27, 30, 37, 60, 68;
--North Mowich, 50-52, 96, 13, 123, 124, 128;
--South Mowich, 52, 13, 22, 23;
--Nisqually, 49, 31, 55, 57, 60, 68, 69, 71, 72, 78, 81;
--Paradise, 50, 94, 97, 25, 31, 60, 79;
--Puyallup, 52, 13, 27, 33;
--Stevens, 50, 97, 61, 64, 79;
--North Tahoma, 93, 13, 26, 27, 32, 33, 37;
--South Tahoma, 93, 17, 27, 32, 36, 37, 60;
--Van Trump, 94, 31, 60;
--White, 50, 81, 93, 9, 12, 94, 95, 96, 100, 121;
--Winthrop, 50, 51, 93, 94, 8, 17, 130, 103, 104, 107, 113, 126,
142.
Glascock, Raglan, 125.
"Goat Island," moraine, 96.
Goat Mountain (Mt. Wow), 28.
Goat Peaks, 87, 90, 94.
Grand Park, 51, 64, 98, 99.
Green River, view of the Mountain from, 140.
Guides, 113, 141.
Hanging glaciers, 51, 57.
Heather, 133.
Hellebore, 133.
Hiaqua Hunter, Myth, 32-39.
Hood, Mt., 86.
Hylebos, P. F. (Rev.), 28, n.
Ice caves, 31, 73.
Indian Henry's Hunting Ground, 49, 25, 29, 32, 34, 36, 37, 40, 50,
131, 137;
--Mrs. Hall's Camp, 141.
Indians, nature worship of the Mountain, 25-31, 39;
Puget Sound tribes, 25, 26;
fear of the snow-peaks, 32, 121.
Ingraham, Maj. E. S., 100.
Interglaciers, 93.
Iron and Copper mountains, 25, 30.
Jones, Wesley L., U. S. Senator, 75.
Jordan, David Starr, 67.
Judson, Miss Katharine B. 35, 39.
Kautz, Gen., A. V., 117.
Kulshan, Indian name for Mt. Baker, 98.
Kutz, Maj. C. W., 69.
Liberty Cap (North Peak), 86, 22, 89, 114.
Little Tahoma, 82, 85, 9, 31, 60, 78, 79, 94, 121.
Longmire, James, trail and road, 59.
Longmire Hotel, 141.
Longmire Springs, 44, 51, 141, 52.
Lost to the World, 69.
Lupines, 139.
McClure, Prof. Edgar, death, 115.
Marmot, 26.
Matthes, Francois E., U. S. geologist, 89, 97.
Mazama (mountain goat), 23.
Mazama Club, 126, 81, 82.
Mazama Ridge, 60.
Mineral Lake, 18.
Moraine Park, 51, 126, 105, 113, 117, 129, 136.
Mosses and ferns, 132.
Mother Mountains, 103, 114, 116, 122, 129.
Mountaineers, The, 126, 61, 121, 126.
Mountain goat, 23.
Mountain Lily, 136, 135.
Mountain Pine, 28.
Muir John, quoted, 77, 113, 129;
Portrait, 116.
Muir, Camp, 115, 60, 80, 83.
Mystic Lake, 113.
Narada Falls, 61, 107, 58.
National Park, see Rainier Natl. Park.
National Parks, proposed Bureau of, 75.
National Park Inn, 44, 50, 52.
Nisqually Canyon, 21.
Nisqually Glacier (see Glaciers).
Nisqually river, 108, 111, 21, 24, 55.
North Peak (Liberty Cap), 13, 22, 89.
Ohop Valley, 43.
Pacific Forest Reserve, 59.
Paradise River, 59.
Paradise Valley, or Park, 30, 49-51, 61, 31, 39, 46, 53, 59, 60, 62.
Peak Success (South Peak), 86, 123-125, 13, 24, 25, 27, 33, 37, 60,
68, 78.
Phlox, 135.
Pierce County road, 43, 49.
Piles, S. H., U. S. Senator, 70.
Pinnacle Peak, 38, 39, 46, 47.
Point Defiance Park, 18.
Power-plants on the Mountain, 108-112, 111, 112.
Proctor, Miss Edna Dean, poem, "The Mountain Speaks," 15.
Ptarmigan, 40.
Puget Sound 18, 25, 14;
named by Vancouver, 98.
Puyallup river, 108, 40.
Pyramid Peak, 25, 60.
Railways to Puget Sound, 44;
to the Mountain, 54, 57;
rates and time table, 140.
Rainier, Rear-Admiral Peter, 7, 98, 100, 103, n., 101.
Reese's Camp, 61, 115, 141, 64.
Reflection Lake, 60, 77.
Rainier National Park, 54;
increasing use of, 56, 57;
its creation, 58-9;
see also Roads.
Ricksecker, Eugene, engineer, 61, 62, 70, 97.
Rivers fed by the Mountain, 108.
Rocks of the Mountain, 82, 112.
Roads and trails, Pierce County's to the Mountain, 44, 56, 42, 43, 44,
49;
government road in National Park, 57-62, 51, 54, 55, 56;
trails 44, 45, 50-2, 55, 56, 121;
proposed road around the Mountain, 62-70;
need 58, 130.
Rough climbing, 39.
Russell, Prof. Israel C., 94.
Russell Peak, 82, 103, 105.
Saghalie Illahe, Indian land of peace, 30.
St. Elmo Pass, 8, 98, 100, 102, 104.
St. Helen's, Mt., 77, 86, 29, 36.
Seattle, 18, 43, 44, 108.
Senecio, 129.
Sierra Club, 75, 126, 57, 69.
Simlayshe (Eagle Peak), 30.
Siwashes, origin of term, 28, n.
See also Indians.
Sluiskin, guides Stevens and Van Trump, 28, 32, 120-1.
Sluiskin Falls, 67.
Sluiskin Mountains, 51, 103, 105, 126, 136, 142.
Snipe Lake, 98.
Snow Lake, 34.
Sour-Dough Mountains, 8, 98, 99.
Spanaway Lake, 4.
South Peak, see Peak Success.
Spray Falls, 125.
Spray Park, 50, 51, 92, 106, 116, 122.
Steamboat Prow, 51, 85, 104.
Steam Caves in Crater, 88.
Stevens, Gen. Hazard, 28, n., 32, 96, 97, 120-4, 115.
Stevens Canyon, 64, 66.
Storm King Peak, 18.
Summit, On the, 52;
South-side route to, 60;
East-side route, 100.
"Sunshine" and "Storm," 70.
"Tacoma," Indian name for the Mountain, 25, 100-7.
Tacoma (City) 18, 43, 44, 111.
Tatoosh Mountains, 50, 53, 59, 60, 62, 64, 87.
Tolmie, Dr. W. F., 117.
Trees in the National Park, 129-131, 139, 42, 130, 132.
Tyndall, Prof. John, quoted, 77.
Unicorn Peak, 65.
United States Geological Survey, 89.
Vancouver, Capt. George, discovers and names the Mountain, 98-101.
Van Trump, P. B., 28, n., 32, 120-5, 115.
Washington Lake, the Mountain from, 16.
Washington Torrents, 59.
Waterfall above Paradise Valley, 63.
Wedge, The, 51, 85, 8, 97, 99, 100.
White river, 110, 12, 112.
Whitney, Mt., 90.
Willis, Bailey, geologist, 96, 97.
Wilson, A. D., 96, 97.
Whulge, see Puget Sound.
Winthrop, Theodore, 93;
describes the Mountain, 102-4;
authority for his use of the Indian name, 104-7.
Wind-swept trees, 28, 139.
Wow, Mt. (Goat Mountain), 28.
Yellowstone National Park, 57, 67, 72.
[Illustration {p.144}: A climbers' cabin on one of the shoulders of Mt.
Blanc.]
[Illustration: The Lakeside Press Chicago R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co.]
[Illustration {p.145}: Map Of Puget Sound Country And Roads To Mt.
Rainier-tacoma]
[Illustration {p.146}: Map of RAINIER NATIONAL PARK Compiled by EUGENE
RICKSECKER U. S. Assistant Engineer FROM "THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS
'GOD'"]
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