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Title: The Guardians of the Columbia - Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens
Author: Williams, John H. (John Harvey), 1864-
Language: English
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Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
* * * * *
THE MOUNTAIN
I hold above a careless land
The menace of the skies;
Within the hollow of my hand
The sleeping tempest lies.
Mine are the promise of the morn,
The triumph of the day;
And parting sunset's beams forlorn
Upon my heights delay.
--Edward Sydney Tylee
* * * * *
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT DR. U. M. LAUMAN
Dawn on Spirit Lake, north side of Mt. St. Helens.
"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." Shakespeare.]
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens
by
JOHN H. WILLIAMS
Author of "The Mountain That Was 'God'"
_And mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land._
SCOTT: "The Lady of the Lake."
With More Than Two Hundred Illustrations
Including Eight in Colors
Tacoma
John H. Williams
1912
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Climbing the last steep slope on Mount Hood, from Cooper's Spur, with
ropes anchored on summit.]
Copyright, 1912, by John H. Williams
[Illustration: Willamette River at Portland, with ships loading wheat
and lumber for foreign ports.]
FOREWORD
In offering this second volume of a proposed series on Western mountain
scenery, I am fortunate in having a subject as unhackneyed as was that
of "The Mountain that Was 'God.'" The Columbia River has been described
in many publications about the Northwest, but the three fine snow-peaks
guarding its great canyon have received scant attention, and that mainly
from periodicals of local circulation.
These peaks are vitally a part of the vast Cascade-Columbia scene to
which they give a climax. Hence the story here told by text and picture
has necessarily included the stage upon which they were built up. And
since the great forests of this mountain and river district are a factor
of its beauty as well as its wealth, I am glad to be able to present a
brief chapter about them from the competent hand of Mr. H. D. Langille,
formerly of the United States forest service. A short bibliography, with
notes on transportation routes, hotels, guides and other matters of
interest to travelers and students, will be found at the end.
Accuracy has been my first aim. I have tried to avoid the exaggeration
employed in much current writing for the supposed edification of
tourists. It has seemed to me that simply and briefly to tell the truth
about the fascinating Columbia country would be the best service I could
render to those who love its splendid mountains and its noble river. A
mass of books, government documents and scientific essays has been
examined. This literature is more or less contradictory, and as I cannot
hope to have avoided all errors, I shall be grateful for any correction
of my text.
In choosing the illustrations, I have sought to show the individuality
of each peak. Mountains, like men, wear their history on their
faces,--none more so than Hood's sharp and finely scarred pyramid; or
Adams, with its wide, truncated dome and deeply carved slopes; or St.
Helens, newest of all our extinct volcanoes--if, indeed, it be
extinct,--and least marred by the ice, its cone as perfect as
Fujiyama's. Each has its own wonderful story to tell of ancient and
often recent vulcanism. Let me again suggest that readers who would get
the full value of the more comprehensive illustrations will find a
reading glass very useful.
Thanks are due to many helpers. More than fifty photographers,
professional and amateur, are named in the table of illustrations.
Without their co-operation the book would have been impossible. I am
also indebted for valued information and assistance to the librarians at
the Portland and Tacoma public libraries, the officers and members of
the several mountaineering clubs in Portland, and the passenger
departments of the railways reaching that city; to Prof. Harry Fielding
Reid, the eminent geologist of Johns Hopkins University; Fred G.
Plummer, geographer of the United States forest service; Dr. George Otis
Smith, director of the United States geological survey; Judge Harrington
Putnam, of New York, president of the American Alpine Club; Messrs.
Rodney L. Glisan, William M. Ladd, H. O. Stabler, T. H. Sherrard, Judge
W. B. Gilbert, H. L. Pittock, George H. Himes, John Gill, C. E. Rusk,
and others in Portland and elsewhere.
The West has much besides magnificent scenery to give those who visit
it. Here have been played, upon a grander stage, the closing acts in the
great drama of state-building which opened three hundred years ago on
the Atlantic Coast. The setting has powerfully moulded the history, and
we must know one if we would understand the other. Europe, of course,
offers to the American student of culture and the arts something which
travel here at home cannot supply. But every influence that brings the
different sections of the United States into closer touch and fuller
sympathy makes for patriotism and increased national strength.
This, rather than regret for the two hundred millions of dollars which
our tourists spend abroad each year, is the true basis of the "See
America First" movement. According to his capacity, the tourist commonly
gets value for his money, whether traveling in Europe or America. But
Eastern ignorance of the West is costing the country more than the drain
of tourist money.
This volume is presented, therefore, as a call to better appreciation of
the splendor and worth of our own land. Its publication will be
justified if it is found to merit in some degree the commendation given
its predecessor by Prof. W. D. Lyman, of Whitman College, whose
delightful book on the Columbia has been consulted and whose personal
advice has been of great value throughout my work. "I wish to express
the conviction," writes Prof. Lyman, "that you have done an inestimable
service to all who love beauty, and who stand for those higher things
among our possessions that cannot be measured in money, but which have
an untold bearing upon the finer sensibilities of a nation."
Tacoma, June 15, 1912.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from south slope of Mount St. Helens,
near the summit, showing the Cascade ranges below. Note the great burn
in the forest cover of the ridges. "Steamboat Mountain" is seen in the
distance beyond. Elevation of camera, nearly 9,000 feet.]
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia at Lyle, Washington.]
CONTENTS
I. THE RIVER.
Dawn at Cloud Cap Inn--The geological dawn--Cascade-Sierra
uptilt--Rise of the snow-peaks--An age of vulcanism--Origin
of the great Columbia gorge--Dawn in Indian legend--The
"Bridge of the Gods"--Victory of Young Chinook--Dawn of
modern history--The pioneers and the state builders 15
II. THE MOUNTAINS.
Portland's snowy sentinels--Ruskin on the mountains--Cascades
vs. Alps--Mount Hood and its retreating glaciers--The
Mazamas--A shattered crater--Mount Adams--Lava and ice
caves--Mount St. Helens--The struggle of the forest on the
lava beds--Adventures of the climbers--The Mazamas in
peril--An heroic rescue 57
III. THE FORESTS, by HAROLD DOUGLAS LANGILLE.
Outposts at timber line--The alpine parks--Zone of the great
trees--Douglas fir--From snow-line to ocean beach--Conservation
and reforestation 123
NOTES 140
ILLUSTRATIONS
The * indicates engravings from copyrighted photographs. See notice
under the illustration.
THREE-COLOR HALFTONES.
Title Photographer Page
*Dawn on Spirit Lake, north side of Mount
St. Helens Dr. U. M. Lauman Frontispiece
*St. Peter's Dome, with the Columbia and
Mount Adams G. M. Weister 20
*Nightfall on the Columbia Kiser Photo Co. 37
*Columbia River and Mount Hood, from White
Salmon, Washington Kiser Photo Co. 56
*Mount Hood, with crevasses of Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 73
*Ice Castle and crevasse, Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 92
*Columbia River and Mount Adams, from Hood
River, Oregon Benj. A. Gifford 109
An Island of Color--Rhododendrons and Squaw
Grass Asahel Curtis 127
ONE-COLOR HALFTONES.
Title Photographer Page
*Climbing to summit of Mount Hood from Cooper
Spur G. M. Weister 6
Willamette River and Portland Harbor G. M. Weister 7
Mount Adams, from south slope of Mount St.
Helens G. M. Weister 8
Columbia River at Lyle William R. King 9
Mount Hood, seen from the Columbia at
Vancouver L. C. Henrichsen 14
Trout Lake and Mount Adams Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 15
Mount St. Helens, seen from the Columbia,
with railway bridge C. S. Reeves 15
*View up the Columbia, opposite Astoria G. M. Weister 16
Astoria in 1813 From an old print 16
*View north from Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 17
Columbia Slough, near mouth of the
Willamette George F. Holman 18
*Cape Horn Kiser Photo Co. 19
Mount Hood, seen from Columbia Slough L. C. Henrichsen 21
*Campfire of Yakima Indians at Astoria
Centennial Frank Woodfield 21
Sunset at mouth of the Columbia Frank Woodfield 22
Portland, the Willamette, and Mounts
Hood, Adams and St. Helens Angelus Photo Co. 22
"The Coming of the White Man" L. C. Henrichsen 23
"Sacajawea" G. M. Weister 23
Sunset on Vancouver Lake Jas. Waggener, Jr. 24
Fort Vancouver in 1852 From an old lithograph 24
*Rooster Rock G. M. Weister 25
Seining for Salmon on the lower Columbia Frank Woodfield 25
*The Columbia near Butler, looking
across to Multnomah Falls Kiser Photo Co. 26
Captain Som-kin, chief of Indian police Lee Moorehouse 26
*Multnomah Falls in Summer and Winter (2) Kiser Photo Co. 27
*View from the cliffs at Multnomah Falls Kiser Photo Co. 28
*The broad Columbia, seen from Lone Rock Kiser Photo Co. 29
Castle Rock, seen from Mosquito Island Kiser Photo Co. 29
*The Columbia opposite Oneonta Gorge and
Horsetail Falls Kiser Photo Co. 30
An Original American C. C. Hutchins 30
*View from elevation west of St. Peter's
Dome Kiser Photo Co. 31
*Oneonta Gorge G. M. Weister 32
Looking up the Columbia, near Bonneville H. J. Thorne 33
Salmon trying to jump the Falls of the
Willamette Jas. Waggener, Jr. 33
*In the Columbia Canyon at Cascade Kiser Photo Co. 34
*The Cascades of the Columbia G. M. Weister 35
*Fishwheel below the Cascades, with
Table Mountain G. M. Weister 36
*Sunrise on the Columbia, from top of
Table Mountain Kiser Photo Co. 36
Looking down the Columbia below the
Cascades L. J. Hicks 38
*Wind Mountain and submerged forest G. M. Weister 39
Steamboat entering Cascades Locks G. M. Weister 39
Moonlight on the Columbia, with clouds
on Wind Mountain C. S. Reeves 40
*White Salmon River and its Gorge (2) Kiser Photo Co. 41
Looking down the Columbia Canyon from
White Salmon, Washington S. C. Reeves 42
An Oregon Trout Stream L. C. Henrichsen 42
Looking up the Columbia from Hood
River, Oregon F. C. Howell 43
*Hood River, fed by the glaciers of
Mount Hood Benj. A. Gifford 43
A Late Winter Afternoon; the Columbia
from White Salmon C. C. Hutchins 44
*Memaloose Island G. M. Weister 44
"Gateway to the Inland Empire;" the
Columbia at Lyle Kiser Photo Co. 45
"Grant Castle" and Palisades of the
Columbia below The Dalles G. M. Weister 46
*The Dalles of the Columbia, lower
channel G. M. Weister 47
Cabbage Rock Lee Moorehouse 47
A True Fish Story of the Columbia Frank Woodfield 48
The Zigzag River in Winter T. Brook White 48
*The Dalles, below Celilo G. M. Weister 49
The "Witch's Head," an Indian picture rock Lee Moorehouse 50
Village of Indian tepees, Umatilla Reservation Lee Moorehouse 50
Mount Adams, seen from Eagle Peak Asahel Curtis 51
A Clearing in the Forest; Mount Hood from
Sandy, Oregon L. C. Henrichsen 51
An Indian Madonna and Child Lee Moorehouse 52
Finished portion of Canal at Celilo Ed. Ledgerwood 52
*Sentinels of "the Wallula Gateway" G. M. Weister 53
*Tumwater, the falls of the Columbia at
Celilo Kiser Photo Co. 54
*Summit of Mount Hood, from west end
of ridge G. M. Weister 55
North side of Mount Hood, from ridge west
of Cloud Cap Inn George R. Miller 57
Winter on Mount Hood Rodney L. Glisan 57
*Watching the Climbers, from Cloud Cap Inn G. M. Weister 58
Lower end of Eliot glacier, seen from
Cooper Spur E. D. Jorgensen 59
Snout of Eliot glacier Prof. W. D. Lyman 59
Cone of Mount Hood, seen from Cooper Spur F. W. Freeborn 60
Cloud Cap Inn George R. Miller 60
*Portland's White Sentinel, Mount Hood G. M. Weister 61
*Ice Cascade on Eliot glacier, Mount Hood G. M. Weister 62
Portland Snow-shoe Club members on Eliot
glacier in Winter Rodney L. Glisan 62
*Snow-bridge over great crevasse, Eliot
glacier G. M. Weister 63
*Coasting down east side of Mount Hood,
above Cooper Spur. G. M. Weister 63
*Mount Hood, from hills south of The
Dalles G. M. Weister 64
*Mount Hood, from Larch Mountain L. J. Hicks 65
Butterfly on summit of Mount Hood Shoji Endow 66
Portland Snow-shoe Club and Club House (2) Rodney L. Glisan 66
Fumarole, or gas vent, near Crater Rock L. J. Hicks 66
Looking across the head of Eliot glacier Shoji Endow 67
Mount Hood at night, from Cloud Cap Inn William M. Ladd 67
Climbing Mount Hood; the rope anchor (2)
George R. Miller and Shoji Endow 68
North side of Mount Hood, from moraine of
Coe glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 69
*Looking west on summit, with Mazama
Rock below G. M. Weister 70
Summit of Mount Hood, from Mazama Rock F. W. Freeborn 70
Mount Hood, from Sandy Canyon L. J. Hicks 71
Crevasses of Coe glacier (2) Mary C. Voorhees 72
*Crevasse and Ice Pinnacles on Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 74
Mount Hood, seen from the top of Barret Spur
Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 75
Ice Cascade, south side of Mount Hood Prof. J. N. LeConte 75
Little Sandy or Reid glacier, west side of
Mount Hood Elisha Coalman 76
Portland Y. M. C. A. party starting for
the summit A. M. Grilley 76
Crater of Mount Hood, seen from south
side L. J. Hicks 77
South side of Mount Hood, from
Tom-Dick-and-Harry Ridge L. E. Anderson 78
Crag on which above view was taken H. J. Thorne 78
Part of the "bergschrund" above Crater Rock G. M. Weister 79
Prof. Reid and party exploring Zigzag glacier Asahel Curtis 79
Mazamas near Crater Rock (2) Asahel Curtis 80
Portland Ski Club on south side of Mount Hood E. D. Jorgensen 81
Mount Hood Lily William L. Finley 81
Mazama party exploring White River
glacier (2) Asahel Curtis 82
Newton Clark glacier, seen from Cooper Spur Shoji Endow 83
Looking from Mount Jefferson to Mount Hood L. J. Hicks 83
*Shadow of Mount Hood G. M. Weister 84
Snout of Newton Clark glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 84
*Mount Hood and Hood River Benj. A. Gifford 85
Lava Flume near Trout Lake Ray M. Filloon 86
Y. M. C. A. party from North Yakima at Red
Butte Eugene Bradbury 86
Ice Cave in lava bed near Trout Lake Ray M. Filloon 87
*Mount Adams, from northeast side of Mount
St. Helens G. M. Weister 88
Mount Adams, from Trout Creek at Guler L. J. Hicks 89
Climbers on South Butte Ray M. Filloon 89
Dawn on Mount Adams, telephotographed from
Guler at 4 a.m. L. J. Hicks 90
Foraging in the Snow Crissie Cameron 90
*Steel's Cliff, southeast side of Mount Hood G. M. Weister 91
Mazamas Climbing Mount Adams Asahel Curtis 93
Mount Adams from lake, with hotel site above Ed. Hess 93
Climbing from South Peak to Middle Peak L. J. Hicks 94
Mount Adams, seen from Happy Valley Asahel Curtis 94
Mount Adams, from Snow-plow Mountain Ed. Hess 95
*Wind-whittled Ice near summit of Mount Adams S. C. Smith 95
Mazama glacier and Hellroaring Canyon (2) William R. King 96
Nearing the Summit of Mount Adams, south side Shoji Endow 97
Ice Cascade, above Klickitat glacier Ray M. Filloon 97
An Upland Park H. O. Stabler 97
Mount Adams and Klickitat glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 98
Storm on Klickitat glacier, seen from the
Ridge of Wonders Prof. W. D. Lyman 99
Snow Cornice and Crevasse, head of
Klickitat glacier (2) H. V. Abel and Ray M. Filloon 100
Mount Adams, from the Northeast Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 101
*Mount Adams, from Sunnyside, Washington Asahel Curtis 102
Crevasse in Lava glacier Eugene Bradbury 102
North Peak, with the Mountaineers
starting for the summit W. M. Gorham 103
Snow-bridge over Killing Creek W. H. Gorham 103
Route up the Cleaver, north side of
Mount Adams Eugene Bradbury 104
Looking across Adams glacier Carlyle Ellis 104
"The Mountain that was 'God'" seen from
Mount Adams Asahel Curtis 105
Northwest slope of Mount Adams Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 106
Mount Adams from the southwest Prof. W. D. Lyman 107
Scenes in the Lewis River Canyon (3) Jas. Waggener, Jr. 108
*Mount Adams from Trout Lake Kiser Photo Co. 110
Scenes on Lava Bed, south of Mount St.
Helens (3) Jas. Waggener, Jr. 111
Lava Flume, south of Mount St. Helens Jas. Waggener, Jr. 112
Entrance to Lava Flume Rodney L. Glisan 112
Mount St. Helens, seen from Portland L. C. Henrichsen 113
*Mount St. Helens, from Chelatchie Prairie
Jas. Waggener, Jr. 114
Mount St. Helens, seen from Twin Buttes Ray M. Filloon 115
Canyons of South Toutle River U. S. Forest Service 116
Lower Toutle Canyon Jas. Waggener, Jr. 116
Northeast side of Mount St. Helens Dr. U. M. Lauman 117
Mazamas on summit of Mt. St. Helens
shortly before sunset Marion Randall Parsons 117
Mount St. Helens in Winter Dr. U. M. Lauman 118
Mount St. Helens, north side, from near
the snow line Dr. U. M. Lauman 119
Glacier Scenes, east of the "Lizard." (2) Dr. U. M. Lauman 120
*Finest of the St. Helens glaciers G. M. Weister 121
*Road among the Douglas Firs Asahel Curtis 122
Ships loading lumber at one of
Portland's mills The Timberman 123
Outposts of the Forest Shoji Endow 123
Alpine Hemlocks at the timber line Ray M. Filloon 124
Mazamas at the foot of Mount St. Helens E. S. Curtis 124
A Lowland Ravine E. S. Curtis 125
*The Noble Fir Kiser Photo Co. 125
Dense Hemlock Forest G. M. Weister 126
Mount Hood, from Ghost-tree Ridge George R. Miller 126
*A Group of Red Cedars Asahel Curtis 128
Road to Government Camp A. M. Grilley 129
Firs and Hemlocks, in Clarke County,
Washington Jas. Waggener, Jr. 130
*Where Man is a Pigmy G. M. Weister 130
Hemlock growing on Cedar log Asahel Curtis 131
Tideland Spruce Frank Woodfield 131
Sugar Pine, Douglas Fir and Yellow Pine Jas. Waggener, Jr. 132
Yellow Cedar, with young Silver Fir H. D. Norton 133
*One of the Kings of Treeland Benj. A. Gifford 133
*Firs and Vine Maples Jas. Waggener, Jr. 134
Log Raft Benj. A. Gifford 134
A "Burn" on Mount Hood, overgrown with
Squaw Grass Asahel Curtis 135
*A Noble Fir Benj. A. Gifford 136
Western White Pine Unknown 136
A Clatsop Forest H. D. Langille 137
Carpet of Firs J. E. Ford 137
Winter in the Forest, near Mount Hood E. D. Jorgensen 138
Rangers' Pony Trail A. P. Cronk 138
Forest Fire on East Fork of Hood River William M. Ladd 139
Reforestation; three generations of
young growth H. D. Langille 139
Klickitat River Canyon William R. King 144
MAPS.
The Scenic Northwest 13
Mount Hood 58
Mount Adams 87
Mount St. Helens 107
[Illustration: THE SCENIC NORTHWEST
Relief Map to accompany
"THE GUARDIANS _of the_ COLUMBIA"
by John H. Williams
Designed by G. H. Mulldorfer.--Portland.]
[Illustration: A Gray Day on the Columbia. Telephotograph of Mount Hood
from the river opposite Vancouver Barracks.]
[Illustration: Trout Lake and Mount Adams.]
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
I.
THE RIVER
The Columbia, viewed as one from the sea to the
mountains, is like a rugged, broad-topped picturesque
old oak, about six hundred miles long, and nearly a
thousand miles wide, measured across the spread of its
upper branches, the main limbs gnarled and swollen
with lakes and lake-like expansions, while innumerable
smaller lakes shine like fruit among the smaller
branches.--_John Muir._
ON a frosty morning of last July, before sunrise, I stood upon the
belvedere of the delightful Cloud Cap Inn, which a public-spirited man
of Portland has provided for visitors to the north side of Mount Hood;
and from that superb viewpoint, six thousand feet above sea level,
watched the day come up out of the delicate saffron east. Behind us lay
Eliot Glacier, sloping to the summit of the kindling peak. Before us
rose--an ocean!
[Illustration: Mount St. Helens, seen from the Columbia at Vancouver,
with railway bridge in foreground.]
Never was a marine picture of greater stress. No watcher from the
crags, none who go down to the sea in ships, ever beheld a scene more
awful. Ceaselessly the mighty surges piled up against the ridge at our
feet, as if to tear away the solid foundations of the mountain. Towers
and castles of foam were built up, huge and white, against the sullen
sky, only to hurl themselves into the gulf. Far to the north, dimly
above this gray and heaving surface were seen the crests of three
snow-mantled mountains, paler even than the undulating expanse from
which they emerged. All between was a wild sea that rolled across sixty
miles of space to assail those ghostly islands.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
View up the Columbia on north side, opposite Astoria. Noon rest of the
night fishermen. Much of the fishing on the lower Columbia is done at
night with gill-nets from small boats. The river is here six miles
wide.]
Yet the tossing breakers gave forth no roar. It was a spectral and
pantomimic ocean. We "had sight of Proteus rising from the sea," but no
Triton of the upper air blew his "wreathed horn." Cold and uncanny, all
that seething ocean was silent as a windless lake under summer stars. It
was a sea of clouds.
[Illustration: Astoria in 1813, showing the trading post established by
John Jacob Astor.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Looking north from lower end of Eliot Glacier on Mount Hood, across the
Cascade ranges and the Columbia River canyon, twenty-five miles away, to
Mount Adams (right), Mount Rainier-Tacoma (center), and Mount St. Helens
(left). These snow-peaks are respectively 60, 100, and 60 miles
distant.]
Swiftly the dawn marched westward. The sun, breaking across the eastern
ridges, sent long level beams to sprinkle the cloud-sea with silver. Its
touch was magical. The billows broke and parted. The mists fled in
panic. Cloud after cloud arose and was caught away into space. The
tops of the Cascade ranges below came, one by one, into view. Lower and
lower, with the shortening shadows, the wooded slopes were revealed in
the morning light. Here and there some deep vale was still white and
hidden. Scattered cloud-fleeces clung to pinnacles on the cliffs.
Northward, the snow-peaks in Washington towered higher. Great banks of
fog embraced their forested abutments, and surged up to their glaciers.
But the icy summits smiled in the gladness of a new day. The reign of
darkness and mist was broken.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock or hill.
Clearer and wider the picture grew. Below us, the orchards of Hood River
caught the fresh breezes and laughed in the first sunshine. The day
reached down into the nearer canyons, and saluted the busy, leaping
brooks. Noisy waterfalls filled the glens with spray, and built rainbows
from bank to bank, then hurried and tumbled on, in conceited haste, as
if the ocean must run dry unless replenished by their wetness ere the
sun should set again. Rippling lakes, in little mountain pockets,
signaled their joy as blankets of dense vapor were folded up and quickly
whisked away.
[Illustration: Columbia Slough in Winter, near the mouth of the
Willamette.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Cape Horn, tall basaltic cliffs that rise, terrace upon terrace, on the
north side of the Columbia, twenty-five miles east of Portland. Lone
Rock is seen in the distance.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
St. Peter's Dome, an 800-foot crag on the south bank of the Columbia;
Mt. Adams in the distance
"Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden network in your belting woods;
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire."--Whittier.]
[Illustration: Mount Hood, seen from Columbia Slough.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, FRANK WOODFIELD
Campfire of Yakima Indians gathered at the Astoria Centennial, 1911, to
take part in "The Bridge of the Gods," a dramatization of Balch's famous
story. The celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the Astor
trading post at the mouth of the Columbia was made noteworthy by a
revival of Indian folk lore, in which the myth of the great tamahnawas
bridge held first place.] Thirty miles northeast, a ribbon of gold
flashed the story of a mighty stream at The Dalles. Far beyond, even to
the uplands of the Umatilla and the Snake, to the Blue Mountains of
eastern Washington and Oregon, stretched the wheat fields and stock
ranges of that vast "Inland Empire" which the great river watered; while
westward, cut deep through a dozen folds of the Cascades, the chasm
it had torn on its way to the sea was traced in the faint blue that
distance paints upon evergreen hills. Out on our left, beyond the
mountains, the Willamette slipped down its famous valley to join the
larger river; and still farther, a hundred and fifty miles away, our
glasses caught the vague gray line of the Pacific. Within these limits
of vision lay a noble and historic country, the lower watershed of the
Columbia.
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
[Illustration: Sunset at the mouth of the Columbia. Cape Hancock on
right, Point Adams on left. View from river off Astoria.]
[Illustration: Northern part of Portland, showing the Willamette River
flowing through it, and indicating relative position of the three
snow-peaks. Mount Hood (right) and Mount St. Helens (left) are each
about fifty miles away, while Mount Adams, seen between, is twenty miles
farther.]
[Illustration: "The Coming of the White Man" and "Sacajawea," statues in
Portland City Park which commemorate the aboriginal Americans.]
Wide as was the prospect, however, it called the imagination to a still
broader view; to look back, indeed,--how many millions of years?--to an
earlier dawn, bounded by the horizons of geological time. Let us try to
realize the panorama thus unfolded. As we look down from some aerial
viewpoint, behold! there is no Mount Hood and no Cascade Range. The
volcanic snow-peaks of Oregon and Washington are still embryo in the
womb of earth. We stand face to face with the beginnings of the
Northwest.
Far south and east of our castle-in-the-air, islands rise slowly out of
a Pacific that has long rolled, unbroken, to the Rocky Mountains. We
see the ocean bed pushed above the tide in what men of later ages will
call the Siskiyou and the Blue Mountains, one range in southwestern, the
other in eastern, Oregon. A third uptilt, the great Okanogan, in
northern Washington, soon appears. All else is sea. Upon these primitive
uplands, the date is written in the fossil archives of their ancient sea
beaches, raised thousands of feet above the former shore-line level. At
a time when all western Europe was still ocean, and busy foraminifers
were strewing its floor with shells to form the chalk beds of France and
England, these first lands of our Northwest emerged from the great deep.
It is but a glimpse we get into the immeasurable distance of the
Paleozoic. Its time-units are centuries instead of minutes.
[Illustration: Sunset on Vancouver Lake, near Vancouver, Washington.]
[Illustration: Fort Vancouver in 1852.]
Another glance, as the next long geological age passes, and we perceive
a second step in the making of the West. It is the gradual uplift of a
thin sea-dike, separating the two islands first disclosed, and
stretching from the present Lower California to our Alaska. It is a
folding of the earth's crust that will, for innumerable ages, exercise a
controlling influence upon the whole western slope of North America. At
first merely a sea-dike, we see it slowly become a far-reaching range of
hills, and then a vast continental mountain system, covering a broad
region with its spurs and interlying plateaus. "The highest mountains,"
our school geographies used to tell us, "parallel the deepest oceans."
So here, bordering its profound depths, the Pacific ocean, through
centuries of centuries, thrust upward, fold on fold, the lofty ridges of
this colossal Sierra-Cascade barrier, to be itself a guide of further
land building, a governor of climate, and a reservoir of water for
valleys and river basins as yet unborn.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Rooster Rock, south bank of the Columbia.]
[Illustration: Seining for salmon on the lower Columbia.]
Behind this barrier, what revolutions are recorded! The inland sea, at
first a huge body of ocean waters, becomes in time a fresh-water lake.
In its three thousand feet of sediment, it buries the fossils of a
strange reptilian life, covering hundreds of thousands of years. Cycle
follows cycle, altering the face of all that interior basin. Its vast
lake is lessened in area as it is cut off from the Utah lake on the
south and hemmed in by upfolds on the north. Then its bed is lifted up
and broken by forces of which our present-day experiences give us no
example. Instead of one great lake, as drainage proceeds, we behold at
last a wide country of many lakes and rivers. Their shores are clothed
in tropical vegetation. Under the palms, flourish a race of giant
mammals. The broad-faced ox, the mylodon, mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros,
and mastodon, and with them the camel and the three-toed horse, roam the
forests that are building the coal deposits for a later age. This story
of the Eocene and Miocene time is also told in the fossils of the
period, and we may read it in the strata deposited by the lakes.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The Columbia near Butler, looking across to Multnomah Falls.]
[Illustration: Captain Som-Kin, chief of Indian police, Umatilla
reservation.]
[Illustration: Multnomah Falls in Summer and Winter. This fascinating
cascade, the most famous in the Northwest, falls 720 feet into a basin,
and then 130 feet to the bank of the Columbia below.
PHOTOS COPYRIGHT, KISER]
Age succeeds age, not always distinct, but often overlapping one
another, and all changing the face of nature. The Coast Range rises,
shutting in vast gulfs to fill later, and form the valleys of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin in California and the Willamette in Oregon,
with the partly filled basin of Puget Sound in Washington. Centering
along the Cascade barrier, an era of terrific violence shakes the very
foundation of the Northwest. Elevations and contours are changed. New
lake beds are created. Watersheds and stream courses are remodeled. Dry
"coulees" are left where formerly rivers flowed. Strata are uptilted and
riven, to be cross-sectioned again by the new rivers as they cut new
canyons in draining the new lakes. Most important of all, outflows of
melted rock, pouring from fissures in the changing earth-folds, spread
vast sheets of basalt, trap and andesite over most of the interior.
Innumerable craters build cones of lava and scoriæ along the Cascade
uptilt, and scatter clouds of volcanic ashes upon the steady sea winds,
to blanket the country for hundreds of miles with deep layers of future
soil.
A reign of ice follows the era of tropic heat. Stupendous glaciers grind
the volcanic rocks, and carving new valleys, endow them with fertility
for new forests that will rise where once the palm forests stood. With
advancing age, the earth grows cold and quiet, awakening only to an
occasional volcanic eruption or earthquake as a reminder of former
violence. The dawn of history approaches. The country slowly takes on
its present shape. Landscape changes are henceforth the work of milder
forces, erosion by streams and remnant glaciers. Man appears.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
View from the cliffs at Multnomah Falls (seen on right). Castle Rock is
in distance on north side.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The broad Columbia, seen from Lone Rock, a small island east of Cape
Horn. Shows successive ranges of the Cascades cut by the river, with
Archer and Arrowhead Mountains and Castle Rock in distance on north
side.]
[Illustration: Castle Rock, a huge tower of columnar basalt, 1146 feet
high, on north bank of the Columbia, forty miles east of Portland. View
from Mosquito Island.]
Throughout the cycles of convulsion and revolution which we have
witnessed from our eyrie in the clouds, the vital and increasing
influence in the building of the Northwest has been the Cascade upfold.
First, it merely shuts in a piece of the Pacific. Rising higher, its
condensation of the moist ocean wind feeds the thousand streams that
convert the inland seas thus enclosed from salt to fresh water, and
furnish the silt deposited over their floors. The fractures and faults
resulting from its uptilting spread an empire with some of the largest
lava flows in geological history. It pushes its snow-covered volcanoes
upward, to scatter ashes far to the east. Finally, its increasing height
converts a realm of tropical verdure into semi-arid land, which only its
rivers, impounded by man, will again make fertile.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The Columbia, opposite Oneonta Bluffs and Gorge, and Horsetail Falls.]
[Illustration: An original American--"Jake" Hunt, former Klickitat
chief, 112 years old. He is said to be the oldest Indian on the
Columbia.]
In all this great continental barrier, throughout the changes which we
have witnessed, there has been only one sea-level pass. For nearly a
thousand miles northward from the Gulf of California, the single outlet
for the waters of the interior is the remarkable canyon which we first
saw from the distant roof of Cloud Cap Inn. Here the Columbia, greatest
of Western rivers, has cut its way through ranges rising more than 4,000
feet on either hand. This erosion, let us remember, has been continuous
and gradual, rather than the work of any single epoch. It doubtless
began when the Cascade Mountains were in their infancy, a gap in the
prolonged but low sea-dike. The drainage, first of the vast salt lake
shut off from the ocean, and then of the succeeding fresh-water lakes,
has preserved this channel to the sea, cutting it deeper and deeper as
the earth-folds rose higher, until at last the canyon became one of the
most important river gorges in the world. Thus nature prepared a vast
and fruitful section of the continent for human use, and provided it
with a worthy highway to the ocean.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
View from 2,300 foot elevation, west of St. Peter's Dome. The Columbia
here hurries down from The Cascades with a speed varying in different
seasons from six to ten miles per hour. Mosquito Island lies below, with
Castle Rock opposite. Beyond, the beautiful wooded ridges rise to 4,100
feet in Arrowhead and Table Mountains, and the snowy dome of Mount Adams
closes the scene, fifty miles away.]
Over this beautiful region we may descry yet another dawn, the
beginnings of the Northwestern world according to Indian legend. The
Columbia River Indian, like his brothers in other parts of the country,
was curious about the origin of the things he beheld around him, and
oppressed by things he could not see. The mysteries both of creation and
of human destiny weighed heavily upon his blindness; and his mind,
pathetically groping in the dark, was ever seeking to penetrate the
distant past and the dim future. So far as he had any religion, it was
connected with the symbols of power in nature, the forces which he saw
at work about him. These forces were often terrible and ruinous, so his
gods were as often his enemies as his benefactors. Feeling his
powerlessness against their cunning, he borrowed a cue from the "animal
people," Watetash, who used craft to circumvent the malevolent gods.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Oneonta Gorge, south side of the Columbia, thirty-three miles east of
Portland.]
These animal people, the Indian believed, had inhabited the world before
the time of the first grandfather, when the sun was as yet only a star,
and the earth, too, had grown but little, and was only a small island.
The chief of the animal people was Speelyei, the coyote, not the
mightiest but the shrewdest of them all. Speelyei was the friend of
"people". He had bidden people to appear, and they "came out."
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia, near Bonneville. The main
channel of the river is on right of the shoal in foreground.]
[Illustration: Salmon trying to jump the Falls of the Willamette at
Oregon City.]
One of the most interesting attempts to account for the existence of the
Red Man in the Northwest is the Okanogan legend that tells of an island
far out at sea inhabited by a race of giant whites, whose chief was a
tall and powerful woman, Scomalt. When her giants warred among
themselves, Scomalt grew angry and drove all the fighters to the end of
the island. Then she broke off the end of the island, and pushing with
her foot sent it floating away over the sea. The new island drifted far.
All the people on it died save one man and one woman. They caught a
whale, and its blubber saved them from starving. At last they escaped
from the island by making a canoe. In this they paddled many days. Then
they came to the mainland, but it was small. It had not yet grown much.
Here they landed. But while they had been in the canoe, the sun had
turned them from white to red. All the Okanogans were their children.
Hence they all are red. Many years from now the whole of the mainland
will be cut loose from its foundations, and become an island. It will
float about on the sea. That will be the end of the world.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
In the Columbia Canyon at Cascade, with train on the "North Bank" road.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
The Cascades of the Columbia. The narrow, rock-filled channel has a fall
of thirty-seven feet in four miles. Here the river meets the tides from
the ocean, 160 miles away. On the opposite bank, at right, is seen Table
Mountain, 4,100 feet, the north abutment of the legendary "Bridge of the
Gods."]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Fishwheel below the Cascades, with Table Mountain on north side of
river.]
To the aboriginal Americans in the Northwest the great river, "Wauna" in
their vocabulary, was inevitably a subject of deep interest. It not only
furnished them a highway, but it supplied them with food. Their most
fascinating myths are woven about its history. One of these told of the
mighty struggle between Speelyei and Wishpoosh, the greedy king beaver,
which resulted in breaking down the walls of the great lakes of the
interior and creating a passage for their waters through the mountains.
Thus the Indians accounted for the Columbia and its canyon.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Sunrise on the Columbia; view at 4 a. m. from top of Table Mountain.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Nightfall on the Columbia.
"O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever."--Tennyson.]
But first among the river myths must always be the Klickitat legend of
the famous natural bridge, fabled to have stood where the Cascades of
the Columbia now are. This is one of the most beautiful legends
connected with the source of fire, a problem of life in all the northern
lands. Further, it tells the origin of the three snow-peaks that are the
subject of this book.
[Illustration: Looking down the Columbia below the Cascades, showing
many ranges cut by the river. On the left of the scene is "Sliding
Mountain," its name a reminder that the hillsides on both banks are
slowly moving toward the stream and compelling the railways occasionally
to readjust their tracks.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Wind Mountain and remnant of submerged forest, above the Cascades, at
low water.]
[Illustration: Steamboat entering Cascade Locks.]
In the time of their remote grandfathers, said the Klickitats, Tyhee
Saghalie, chief of the gods, had two sons. They made a trip together
down the river to where The Dalles are now. The sons saw that the
country was beautiful, and quarrelled as to its possession. Then
Saghalie shot an arrow to the north and an arrow to the west. The sons
were bidden to find the arrows, and settle where they had fallen. Thus
one son settled in the fair country between the great river and the
Yakima, and became the grandfather of the Klickitats. The other son
settled in the Willamette valley and became the ancestor of the large
Multnomah tribe. To keep peace between the two tribes, Saghalie raised
the great mountains that separate those regions. But there were not yet
any snow-peaks. The great river also flowed very deep between the
country of the Klickitats and the country of the Multnomahs. That the
tribes might always be friendly, Saghalie built a huge bridge of stone
over the river. The Indians called it the tamahnawas bridge, or bridge
of the gods. The great river flowed under it, and a witch-woman, Loowit,
lived on it. Loowit had charge of the only fire in the world.
[Illustration: Moonlight upon the Columbia, with clouds on Wind
Mountain. Looking up the river from the Cascades.]
[Illustration: White Salmon River and its Gorge, south of Mount Adams.
PHOTOS COPYRIGHT, KISER]
Loowit saw how miserable the tribes were without fire. Therefore she
besought Saghalie to permit her to give them fire. Saghalie granted her
request. Thus a fire was kindled on the bridge. The Indians came there
and obtained fire, which greatly improved their condition. Saghalie was
so much pleased with Loowit's faithfulness that he promised the
witch-woman anything she might ask. Loowit asked for youth and beauty.
So Saghalie transformed her into a beautiful maiden.
[Illustration: Looking down the Columbia Canyon from the cliffs at White
Salmon, Washington.]
[Illustration: An Oregon Trout Stream.]
Many chiefs fell in love with Loowit because of her beauty. But she paid
heed to none till there came two other chiefs, Klickitat from the north,
Wiyeast from the west. As she could not decide which of them to accept
as her husband, they and their people went to war. Great distress came
upon the people because of this fighting. Saghalie grew angry at their
evil doing, and determined to punish them. He broke down the tamahnawas
bridge, and put Loowit, Wiyeast and Klickitat to death. But they had
been beautiful in life, therefore Saghalie would have them beautiful in
death. So he made of them the three famous snow-peaks. Wiyeast became
the mountain which white men call Mount Hood; Klickitat became Mount
Adams; Loowit was changed into Mount St. Helens. Always, said Saghalie,
they should be clothed in garments of snow.
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia from Hood River, Oregon.]
Thus was the wonderful tamahnawas bridge destroyed, and the great river
dammed by the huge rocks that fell into it. That caused the Cascade
rapids. Above the rapids, when the river is low, you can still see the
forests that were buried when the bridge fell down and dammed the
waters.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORD
Hood River, fed by the glaciers of Mount Hood.]
This noteworthy myth, fit to rank with the folk-lore masterpieces of any
primitive people, Greek or Gothic, is of course only a legend. The
Indian was not a geologist. True, we see the submerged forests to-day,
at low water. But their slowly decaying trunks were killed, perhaps not
much more than a century ago, by a rise in the river that was not caused
by the fall of a natural bridge, but by a landslide from the mountains.
[Illustration: A Late Winter Afternoon. View across the Columbia from
White Salmon to the mouth of Hood River, showing the Hood River Valley
with Mount Hood wrapped in clouds.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Memaloose Island, or Island of the Dead, last resting place of thousands
of Indians. The lone monument is that of Maj. Victor Trevitt, a
celebrated pioneer, who asked to be buried here among "honest men."]
There is a slow and glacier-like motion of the hillsides here which from
time to time compels the railways on either bank to readjust their
tracks. The rapids at the Cascades, with their fall of nearly forty
feet, are doubtless the result of comparatively recent volcanic action.
Shaking down vast masses of rock, this dammed the river, and caused it
to overflow its wooded shores above. But to the traveler on a steamboat
breasting the terrific current below the government locks, as he looks
up to the towering heights on either side of the narrowed channel, the
invention of poor Lo's untutored mind seems almost as easy to believe as
the simpler explanation of the scientist.
[Illustration: "Gateway to the Inland Empire." Towering cliffs of
stratified lava that guard the Columbia on each bank at Lyle,
Washington.]
Remarkable as is this fire myth of the tamahnawas bridge, the legend
inspired by the peculiarities of northwestern climate is no less
beautiful. This climate differs materially, it is well known, from that
of eastern America in the same latitude. The Japan Current warms the
coast of Oregon and Washington just as the Gulf Stream warms the coast
of Ireland. East of the Cascade Mountains, the severe cold of a northern
winter is tempered by the "Chinook" winds from the Pacific. A period of
freezing weather is shortly followed by the melting of the snow upon the
distant mountains; by night the warm Chinook sweeps up the Columbia
canyon and across the passes, and in a few hours the mildness of spring
covers the land.
[Illustration: "Grant Castle" and Palisades of the Columbia, on north
side of the river below The Dalles.]
Such a phenomenon inevitably stirred the Indian to an attempt to
interpret it. Like the ancients of other races, he personified the
winds. The Yakima account of the struggle between the warm winds from
the coast and the icy blasts out of the Northeast will bear comparison
with the Homeric tale of Ulysses, buffeted by the breezes from the bag
given him by the wind-god Aeolus.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
The Dalles of the Columbia, lower channel, east of Dalles City. The
river, crowded into a narrow flume, flows here at a speed often
exceeding ten miles an hour.]
Five Chinook brothers, said the Yakima tradition, lived on the great
river. They caused the warm winds to blow. Five other brothers lived at
Walla Walla, the meeting place of the waters. They caused the cold
winds. The grandparents of them all lived at Umatilla, home of the
wind-blown sands. Always there was war between them. They swept over the
country, destroying the forests, covering the rivers with ice, or
melting the snows and causing floods. The people suffered much because
of their violence.
[Illustration: Cabbage Rock, a huge freak of nature standing in the open
plain four miles north of The Dalles. Apparently, the lava core of a
small extinct crater.]
Then Walla Walla brothers challenged Chinook brothers to wrestle.
Speelyei, the coyote god, should judge the contest. He should cut off
the heads of those who fell.
[Illustration: A True Fish Story of the Columbia, where four- and even
five-foot salmon are not uncommon.]
The crafty Speelyei secretly advised the grandparents of Chinook
brothers that if they would throw oil on the ground, their sons would
not fall. This they did. But Speelyei also told the grandparents of
Walla Walla brothers that if they would throw ice on the ground, their
sons would not fall. This they did. So the Chinook brothers were thrown
one after another, and Speelyei cut off their heads, according to the
bargain. So the five Chinook brothers were dead.
But the oldest of them left an infant son. The child's mother brought
him up to avenge the killing of his kinsmen. So the son grew very
strong, until he could pull up great fir trees as if they were weeds.
Then Walla Walla brothers challenged Young Chinook to wrestle. Speelyei
should judge the contest. He should cut off the heads of those who fell.
Secretly Speelyei advised Young Chinook's grandparents to throw oil on
the ground last. This they did. So Walla Walla brothers were thrown one
after another by Young Chinook, until four of them had fallen. Only the
youngest of them was left. His heart failed him, and he refused to
wrestle. Speelyei pronounced this sentence upon him: "You shall live,
but you shall no longer have power to freeze people." To Young Chinook,
he said: "You must blow only lightly, and you must blow first upon the
mountains, to warn people of your coming."
[Illustration: The Zigzag river in winter, south side of Mount Hood.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT G. M. WEISTER
The Dalles. This name, meaning literally flat stones, was given by the
early French-Canadian voyageurs to the twelve-mile section below Celilo,
where, the Columbia has cut through the level lava strata, forming a
channel in some places less than 200 feet wide and nearly 200 feet deep
at low water. At higher stages the river fills many lateral channels and
roars past many islands of its own carving.]
The last dawn of all opens upon the white man's era. On the Columbia,
recorded history is recent, but already epic. Its story is outside the
purpose of this volume. But it is worth while, in closing our brief
glance at the field, to note that this story has been true to its
setting. Rich in heroism and romance, it is perhaps the most typical, as
it is the latest, chapter in the development of the West. For this land
of the river, its quarter-million square miles stretching far northward
to Canada, and far eastward to the Yellowstone, built about with
colossal mountains, laced with splendid waterways, jeweled with
beautiful lakes, where upheaval and eruption, earthquake and glacier
have prepared a home for a great and happy population, has already been
the scene of a drama of curious political contradictions and remarkable
popular achievement.
[Illustration: The "Witch's Head," an Indian picture rock at the old
native village of Wishram, north side of the Columbia near Celilo Falls.
The Indians believe that if an unfaithful wife passes this rock, its
eyes follow her with mute accusation.]
[Illustration: Village of Indian Tepees, Umatilla Reservation, near
Pendleton, Oregon. Many of these Indians are rich landowners, but they
prefer tents to houses.]
The Columbia River basin, alone of all the territories which the United
States has added to its original area, was neither bought with money nor
annexed by war. Its acquisition was a triumph of the American pioneer.
Many nations looked with longing to this Northwest, but it fell a prize
to the nation that neglected it. Spain and Russia wished to own it.
Great Britain claimed and practically held it. The United States
ignored it. For nearly half a century after the discovery of the river
by a Yankee ship captain, Robert Gray, in 1792, and its exploration by
Jefferson's expedition under Lewis and Clark, in 1805, its ownership was
in question. For several decades after an American merchant, John Jacob
Astor, had established the first unsuccessful trading post, in 1811, the
country was actually ruled by the British through a private corporation.
The magic circle drawn about it by the Hudson's Bay Company seemed
impenetrable. Held nominally by the American and British governments in
joint occupancy, it was in fact left to the halfbreed servants of a
foreign monopoly that sought to hold an empire for its fur trade, and to
exclude settlers because their farms would interfere with its beaver
traps. Congress deemed the region worthless.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from Eagle Peak in the Rainier National
Park. View shows some of the largest earth-folds in the Cascade Range,
with the great canyon of the Cowlitz, one of the tributaries of the
Columbia River. Elevation of camera 6,000 feet.]
[Illustration: A clearing in the forest. Mount Hood from Sandy,
twenty-five miles west of the peak.]
But while sleepy diplomacy played its game of chess between Washington
and London, the issue was joined, the title cleared and possession taken
by a breed of men to whom the United States owes more than it can ever
pay. From far east came the thin vanguard of civilization which, for a
century after the old French and Indian war, pushed our boundaries
resistlessly westward. It had seized the "dark and bloody ground" of
Kentucky. It had held the Ohio valley for the young republic during the
Revolution. It had built states from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi.
And now, dragging its wagons across the plains and mountains, it burst,
sun-browned and half-starved, into Oregon. Missionaries and traders,
farmers, politicians and speculators, it was part of that army of
restless spirits who, always seeing visions of more fertile lands and
rising cities beyond, stayed and long in no place, until at last they
found their way barred by the Pacific, and therefore stayed to build the
commonwealths of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
[Illustration: An Indian Madonna and Child. Umatilla Reservation.]
[Illustration: Finished portion of Canal at Celilo, which the Government
is building around Tumwater Falls and The Dalles.]
The arena of their peaceful contest was worthy of their daring. "'A land
of old upheaven from the abyss,' a land of deepest deeps and highest
heights, of richest verdure here, and barest desolation there, of dense
forest on one side, and wide extended prairies on the other; a land of
contrasts, contrasts in contour, hues, productions, and history,"--thus
Professor Lyman describes the stage which the pioneers found set for
them.
The tremendous problems of its development, due to its topography, its
remoteness, its magnificent distances, and its lack of transportation,
demanded men of sturdiest fiber and intrepid leading. No pages of our
history tell a finer story of action and initiative than those which
enroll the names of McLoughlin, the great Company's autocratic governor,
not unfitly called "the father of Oregon," and Whitman, the martyr, with
the frontier leaders who fashioned the first ship of state launched in
the Northwest, and their contemporaries, the men who built the first
towns, roads, schools, mills, steamboats and railways.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT G. M. WEISTER
The grim sentinels of "the Wallula Gateway," huge basaltic pillars that
rise on the south bank of the river, where it crosses the
Washington-Oregon line. View looking south.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Tumwater, the falls of the Columbia at Celilo; total drop, twenty feet
at low water. In Summer, when the snow on the Bitter Root and Rocky
Mountains is melting, the river rises often more than sixty feet.
Steamboats have then passed safely down. Wishram, an ancient Indian
fishing village, was on the north bank below the falls, and Indians may
often still be seen spearing salmon from the shores and islands here.]
Macaulay tells us that a people who are not proud of their forebears
will never deserve the pride of their descendants. The makers of Old
Oregon included as fair a proportion of patriots and heroes as the
immigrants of the Mayflower. We who journey up or down the Columbia in a
luxurious steamer, or ride in a train _de luxe_ along its banks, are the
heirs of their achievement. Honor to the dirt-tanned ox-drivers who
seized for themselves and us this empire of the river and its guardian
snow-peaks!
A lordly river, broad and deep,
With mountains for its neighbors, and in view
Of distant mountains and their snowy tops.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT. G. M. WEISTER
Summit of Mount Hood, viewed from western end of the ridge, showing
north side of the peak in July.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Columbia River and Mt. Hood, seen from White Salmon, Washington.
"Beloved mountain, I
Thy worshiper, as thou the sun's, each morn
My dawn, before the dawn, receive from thee;
And think, as thy rose-tinted peak I see,
That thou wert great when Homer was not born,
And ere thou change all human song shall die."--Helen Hunt Jackson.]
[Illustration: North side of Mount Hood, from ridge several miles west
of Cloud Cap Inn. View shows gorges cut by the glacier-fed streams.
Cooper Spur is on left sky line. Barret Spur is the great ridge on
right, with Ladd glacier canyon beyond. Coe glacier is in center.]
II.
THE MOUNTAINS.
Silent and calm, have you e'er scaled the height
Of some lone mountain peak, in heaven's sight?
--_Victor Hugo._
There stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpen
glow, looming immensely high, beaming with
intelligence. It seemed neither near nor far.... The
whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation
of divine power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing
like a countenance with ineffable repose and beauty,
before which we could only gaze with devout and lowly
admiration.--_John Muir._
[Illustration: Winter on Mount Hood. The roof of the club house of the
Portland Snow-shoe Club is seen over the ridge.]
FROM the heights which back the city of Portland on the west, one may
have a view that is justly famous among the fairest prospects in
America. Below him lies the restless city, busy with its commerce.
Winding up from the south comes the Willamette, its fine valley narrowed
here by the hills, where the river forms Portland's harbor, and is lined
on either side with mills and shipping. Ten miles beyond, the Columbia
flows down from its canyon on the east, and turns northward, an
expanding waterway for great vessels, to its broad pass through the
Coast Range. In every direction, city and country, farm and forest,
valley and mountain, stretches a noble perspective. From the wide rivers
and their shining borders, almost at sea level, the scene arises,
terrace upon terrace, to the encircling hills, and spreads across range
after range to the summits of the great Cascades.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT G. M. WEISTER
Watching the climbers from the plaza at Cloud Cap Inn, northeast side of
Mount Hood. Immediately in front, Eliot glacier is seen, dropping into
its canyon on the right. On the left is Cooper Spur, from which a sharp
ascent leads to the summit of the peak.]
Dominating all are the snow-peaks, august sentinels upon the horizon. On
a clear day, the long line of them begins far down in central Oregon,
and numbers six snowy domes. But any average day includes in its glory
the three nearest, Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Spirit-like, they loom
above the soft Oregon haze, their glaciers signaling from peak to peak,
and their shining summits bidding the sordid world below to look upward.
[Illustration: Mount Hood, elevation 11,225 feet]
Nature has painted canvases more colorful, but none more perfect in its
strength and rest. Here is no flare of the desert, none of the
flamboyant, terrible beauty of the Grand Canyon. It is a land of warm
ocean winds and cherishing sunshine, where the emeralds and jades of the
valleys quickly give place to the bluer greens of evergreen forests that
cover the hill country; and these, in turn, as distance grows, shade
into the lavenders and grays of the successive ranges. The white peaks
complete the picture with its most characteristic note. They give it
distinction.
[Illustration: Lower end of Eliot glacier, seen from Cooper Spur, and
showing the lateral moraines which this receding glacier has built in
recent years.]
[Illustration: Snout of Eliot glacier, its V-shaped ice front heavily
covered with morainal debris.]
Such a panorama justifies Ruskin's bold assertion: "Mountains are the
beginning and end of all natural scenery." Without its mountains, the
view from Council Crest would be as uninteresting as that from any tower
in any prairie city. But all mountains are not alike. In beginning our
journey to the three great snow-peaks which we have viewed from Portland
heights, it is well to define, if we may, the special character of our
Northwestern scene. We sometimes hear the Cascade district praised as
"the American Switzerland." Such a comparison does injustice alike to
our mountains and to the Alps. As a wild, magnificent sea of ice-covered
mountain tops, the Alps have no parallel in America. As a far-reaching
system of splendid lofty ranges clothed in the green of dense forests
and surmounted by towering, isolated summits of snowy volcanoes, the
Cascades are wholly without their equal in Europe. This is the testimony
of famous travelers and alpinists, among them Ambassador Bryce, who has
written of our Northwestern mountain scenery:
We have nothing more beautiful in Switzerland or
Tyrol, in Norway or in the Pyrenees. The combination
of ice scenery with woodland scenery of the grandest
type is to be found nowhere in the Old World, unless
it be in the Himalayas, and, so far as we know,
nowhere else on the American continent.
[Illustration: Cone of Mount Hood, seen from Cooper Spur on northwest
side. A popular route to the summit leads along this ridge of volcanic
scoriæ and up the steep snow slope above.]
[Illustration: Cloud Cap Inn, north side of Mount Hood. Elevation 5,900
feet.]
In his celebrated chapter of the "Modern Painters" which describes the
sculpture of the mountains, Ruskin draws a picture of the Alps that at
once sets them apart from the Cascades:
The longer I stayed among the Alps, the more I was
struck by their being a vast plateau, upon which
nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set
upon a table, removed far back from the edge, as if
for fear of their falling. The most majestic scenes
are produced by one of the great peaks having
apparently walked to the edge of the table to look
over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the
valley in its full height. But the raised table is
always intelligibly in existence, even in these
exceptional cases; and for the most part, the great
peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it, but
remain far withdrawn, surrounded by comparatively
level fields of mountain, over which the lapping
sheets of glacier writhe and flow. The result is the
division of Switzerland into an upper and lower
mountain world; the lower world consisting of rich
valleys, the upper world, reached after the first
steep banks of 3,000 to 4,000 feet have been
surmounted, consisting of comparatively level but most
desolate tracts, half covered by glacier, and
stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the
chain.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Portland's White Sentinel, Mount Hood. Telephoto view from City Park,
showing a portion of the city, with modern buildings and smoke of
factories.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Ice cascade on Eliot glacier, Mount Hood.]
Nothing of this in the Cascades! Instead, we have fold upon fold of the
earth-crust, separated by valleys of great depth. The ranges rise from
levels but little above the sea. For example, between Portland and
Umatilla, although they are separated by the mountains of greatest
actual elevation in the United States, there is a difference of less
than two hundred and fifty feet, Umatilla, east of the Cascades, being
only two hundred and ninety-four feet above tide. Trout Lake, lying
below Mount Adams, at the head of one of the great intermountain
valleys, has an elevation of less than two thousand feet.
[Illustration: Portland Snow-shoe Club members on Eliot glacier in
winter.]
Thus, instead of the Northwestern snow-peaks being set far back upon a
general upland and hidden away behind lesser mountains, to be seen only
after one has reached the plateau, thousands of feet above sea level,
they actually rise either from comparatively low peneplanes on one side
of the Cascades, as in the case of St. Helens, or from the summit of one
of the narrow, lofty ridges, as do Hood and Adams. But in either case,
the full elevation is seen near at hand and from many directions--an
elevation, therefore, greater and more impressive than that of most of
the celebrated Alpine summits.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Snow-bridge over great crevasse, near head of Eliot glacier.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Coasting down east side of Mount Hood, above Cooper Spur. Mount Adams in
distance.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Mount Hood from the hills south of The Dalles, showing the comparatively
timberless country east of the Cascades. Compare this treeless region,
as well as the profile of Mount Hood here shown, with the view from
Larch Mountain.]
Famous as is the valley of Chamonix, and noteworthy as are the glaciers
to which it gives close access, its views of Mont Blanc are
disappointing. Not until the visitor has scaled one of the neighboring
_aiguilles_, can he command a satisfactory outlook toward the Monarch of
the Alps. And nowhere in Switzerland do I recall a picture of such
memorable splendor as greets the traveler from the Columbia, journeying
either southward, up the Hood River Valley toward Mount Hood, or
northward, up the White Salmon Valley toward Trout Lake and Mount Adams.
Here is unrolled a wealth of fertile lowlands, surrounded by lofty
ranges made beautiful by their deep forests and rising to grandeur in
their snow-peaks.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, L. J. HICKS
Mount Hood, seen from Larch Mountain, on the Columbia River. View
looking southeast across the heavily forested ranges of the Cascades to
the deep canyons below Ladd and Sandy glaciers.]
[Illustration: Butterfly on the summit of Mount Hood.]
Leaving the canyon of the Columbia, in either direction the road follows
swift torrents of white glacial water that tell of a source far above.
It crosses a famous valley, among its orchards and hayfields, but always
in view of the dark blue mountains and of the snow-covered volcanoes
that rise before and behind, their glaciers shining like polished steel
in the sunlight. So the visitor reaches the foot of his mountain. Losing
sight of it for a time, he follows long avenues of stately trees as he
climbs the benches. In a few hours he stands upon a barren shoulder of
the peak, at timber line. A new world confronts him. The glaciers reach
their icy arms to him from the summit, and he breathes the winds that
sweep down from their fields of perennial snow.
[Illustration: Members of Portland Snow-shoe Club on way to Mount Hood
in winter, and at their club house, near Cloud Cap Inn.]
[Illustration: Fumarole, or gas vent, near Crater Rock.]
It is all very different from Switzerland, this quick ascent from
bending orchards and forested hills to a mighty peak standing white and
beautiful in its loneliness. But it is so wonderful that Americans who
love the heights can no longer neglect it, and each year increasing
numbers are discovering that here in the Northwest is mountain scenery
worth traveling far to see, with very noble mountains to climb, true
glaciers to explore, and the widest views of grandeur and interest to
enjoy. Such sport combines recreation and inspiration.
[Illustration: Looking across the head of Eliot glacier from near the
summit of Mount Hood.]
The traveler from Portland to either Mount Hood or Mount Adams may go by
rail or steamer to Hood River, Oregon, or White Salmon, Washington.
These towns are on opposite banks of the Columbia at its point of
greatest beauty. Thence he will journey by automobile or stage up the
corresponding valley to the snow-peak at its head. If he is bound for
Mount Hood his thirty-mile ride will bring him to a charming mountain
hotel, Cloud Cap Inn, placed six thousand feet above the sea, on a ridge
overlooking Eliot glacier, Hood's finest ice stream.
[Illustration: Mount Hood at night, seen from Cloud Cap Inn. This view
is from a negative exposed from nine o'clock until midnight.]
If Mount Adams be his destination, a ride of similar length from White
Salmon will bring him merely to the foot of the mountain. The stages
run only to Guler, on Trout Lake, and to Glenwood. Each of these
villages has a comfortable country hotel which may be made the base for
fishing and hunting in the neighborhood. Each is about twelve miles from
the snow-line. At either place, guides, horses and supplies may be had
for the trip to the mountain. Glenwood is nearer to the famous
Hellroaring Canyon and the glaciers of the southeast side. Guler is a
favorite point of departure for the south slope and for the usual route
to the summit.
Another popular starting point for Mount Adams is Goldendale, reached by
a branch of the North Bank railway from Lyle on the Columbia. This route
also leads to the fine park district on the southeastern slope, and it
has a special attraction, as it skirts the remarkable canyon of the
Klickitat River. Many parties also journey to the mountain from North
Yakima and other towns on the Northern Pacific railway. Hitherto, all
such travel from either north or south has meant a trip on foot or
horseback over interesting mountain trails, and has involved the
necessity of packing in camp equipment and supplies. During the present
summer, a hotel is to be erected a short distance from the end of Mazama
glacier, at an altitude of about sixty-five hundred feet, overlooking
Hellroaring Canyon on one side, and on the other a delightful region of
mountain tarns, waterfalls and alpine flower meadows. Its verandas will
command the Mazama and Klickitat glaciers, and an easy route will lead
to the summit. With practicable roads from Goldendale and Glenwood, it
should draw hosts of lovers of scenery and climbing, and aid in making
this great mountain as well known as it deserves to be.
[Illustration: Climbing Mount Hood, with ropes anchored on the summit
and extending down on east and south faces of the peak.]
[Illustration: North side of Mount Hood, seen from moraine of Coe
glacier. This glacier flows down from the summit, where its snow-field
adjoins that of Eliot glacier (left). West of the Coe, the Ladd glacier
is seen, separated from the former by Pulpit Rock, the big crag in the
middle distance, and Barrett Spur, the high ridge on the right.]
Visitors going to Mount Hood from Portland have choice of a second very
attractive hotel base in Government Camp, on the south slope at an
altitude of thirty-nine hundred feet. This is reached by automobiles
from the city, over a fair road that will soon be a good road, thanks
to the Portland Automobile Club. The mountain portion of this highway is
the historic Barlow road, opened in 1845, the first wagon road
constructed across the Cascades. As the motor climbs out of the Sandy
River valley, and grapples the steep moraines built by ancient
icefields, the traveler gets a very feeling reminder of the pluck of
Captain Barlow and his company of Oregon "immigrants" in forcing a way
across these rugged heights. But the beauty of the trip makes it well
worth while, and Government Camp gives access to a side of the peak that
should be visited by all who would know how the sun can shatter a big
mountain with his mighty tools of ice.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Looking west on summit of Mount Hood, with Mazama Rock below.]
[Illustration: Summit of Mount Hood, from Mazama Rock, showing the
sun-cupped ice of midsummer.]
[Illustration: Mount Hood, seen from Sandy River canyon, six miles west
of snow line. This important picture begins with Barrett Spur and Ladd
glacier on the north sky line (left). On the northwest face of the peak
is the main Sandy glacier, its end divided by a ridge into two parts.
The forested "plowshare" projecting into the canyon is Yocum Ridge.
South of it the south branch of the Sandy river flows down from a
smaller glacier called the Little Sandy, or Reid. The broad bottom of
this canyon and the scored cliffs on its sides show that it was formerly
occupied by the glacier.]
The hotel here was erected in 1900 by O. C. Yocum, under whose competent
guidance many hundreds of climbers reached the summit of Mount Hood. The
Hotel is now owned by Elisha Coalman, who has also succeeded to his
predecessor's office as guide. During the last year he has enlarged his
inn, and he is now also building comfortable quarters for climbers at a
camp four miles nearer the snow line, on the ridge separating White
River glacier from Zigzag glacier.
MOUNT HOOD.
Mount Hood is the highest mountain in Oregon, and because of a general
symmetry in its pyramidal shape and its clear-cut, far-seen features of
rock and glacier, it has long been recognized as one of the most
beautiful of all American snow peaks. Rising from the crest of the
Cascades, it presents its different profiles and variously sculptured
faces to the entire valley of the Columbia, east and west, above which
it towers in stately magnificence, a very king of the mountains, ruling
over a domain of ranges, valleys and cities proud of their allegiance.
[Illustration: Crevasses on Coe glacier.]
On October 20, 1792, Lieutenant Broughton, of Vancouver's exploring
expedition in quest of new territories for His Majesty George III.,
discovered from the Columbia near the mouth of the Willamette, "a very
distant high snowy mountain, rising beautifully conspicuous," which he
strangely mistook to be the source of the great river. Forthwith he
named it in honor of Rear Admiral Samuel Hood, of the British Admiralty
who had distinguished himself in divers naval battles during the
American and French Revolutions.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Mount Hood, with Crevasses of Eliot Glacier in foreground.
"Evermore the wind
Is thy august companion; yea, thy peers
Are cloud and thunder, and the face sublime
Of the blue mid-heaven."--Henry Clarence Kendall.]
The mountain has been climbed more often than any other American
snow-peak. The first ascent was made on August 4, 1854, from the south
side, by a party under Captain Barlow, builder of the "immigrant road."
One of the climbers, Editor Dryer of _The Oregonian_, published an
account of the trip in which, with more exactness than accuracy, he
placed the height of the mountain at 18,361 feet! The most notable
ascent by a large party took place forty years later, when nearly two
hundred men and women met on the summit, and there, with parliamentary
dispatch bred of a bitter wind, organized a mountain club which has
since become famous. For its title they took the name "mazama," Mexican
for the mountain goat, close kin to the Alpine chamois. Membership was
opened to those who have scaled a snow-peak on foot. By their
publications and their annual climbs, the Mazamas have done more than
any other agency to promote interest in our Northwestern mountains.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Crevasses and Ice Pinnacles on Eliot Glacier, Mount Hood.]
[Illustration: Mount Hood, seen from the top of Barrett Spur. On the
left, cascading down from the summit, is Coe glacier; on the right, Ladd
glacier. The high cliff separating them is "Pulpit Rock."]
[Illustration: Ice Cascade, south side of Mount Hood, near head of White
River glacier.]
Mount Hood stands, as I have said, upon the summit of the Cascades. The
broad and comparatively level back of the range is here about four
thousand feet above the sea. Upon this plane the volcano erected its
cone, chiefly by the expulsion of scoriæ rather than by extensive lava
flows, to a farther height of nearly a mile and a half. There is no
reason to suppose that it ever greatly exceeded its present altitude,
which government observations have fixed at 11,225 feet. Its diameter
at its base is approximately seven miles from east to west.
[Illustration: Little Sandy or Reid glacier, west side of Mount Hood.]
Compared with Mount Adams, its broken and decapitated northern neighbor,
Mount Hood, although probably dating from Miocene time, is still young
enough to have retained in a remarkable degree the general shape of its
original cone. But as we approach it from any direction, we find
abundant proof that powerful destructive agents have been busy during
the later geological ages. Already the summit plateau upon which the
peak was built up has been largely dissected by the glaciers and their
streams. The whole neighborhood of the mountain is a vastly rugged
district of glacial canyons and eroded water channels, trenched deep in
the soft volcanic ashes and the underlying ancient rock of the range.
The mountain itself, although still a pyramid, also has its story of age
and loss. Its eight glaciers have cut away much of its mass. On three
sides they have burrowed so deeply into the cone that its original
angle, which surviving ridges show to have been about thirty degrees,
has on the upper glacial slopes been doubled. This is well illustrated
by the views shown on pages 58, 61, 69 and 71.
[Illustration: Portland Y. M. C. A. party starting for the summit at
daybreak. South side of Mount Hood.]
[Illustration: Crater of Mount Hood, seen from south side. Its north rim
is the distant summit ridge. Steel's Cliff (right) and Illumination Rock
(left) are parts of east and west rims. The south wall has been torn
away, but the hard lava core remains in Crater Rock, the cone rising in
center. Note the climbers ascending the "Hog-back" or ridge leading from
Crater Rock up to the "bergschrund," a great crevasse which stretches
across the crater at head of the glaciers. The ridge in foreground is
Triangle Moraine. On its right is White River glacier; on left, the
fan-shaped Zigzag glacier.]
This cutting back into the mountain has greatly lessened the area of the
upper snow-fields. The reservoirs feeding the glaciers, are therefore
much smaller than of old, but, by way of compensation, present a
series of most interesting ice formations on the steeper slopes. In this
respect, Mount Hood is especially noteworthy among our Northwestern
snow-peaks. While larger glaciers are found on other mountains, none are
more typical. The glaciers of Hood especially repay study because of
their wonderful variety of ice-falls, terraces, seracs, towers, castles,
pinnacles and crevasses. Winter has fashioned a colossal architecture of
wild forms.
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain,--
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
[Illustration: South side of Mount Hood, seen from crag on
Tom-Dick-and-Harry Ridge, five miles from the snow-line. A thousand feet
below is the hotel called "Government Camp," with the Barlow road, the
first across the Cascades. On left are Zigzag and Sand canyons, cut by
streams from Zigzag glacier above.]
[Illustration: Crag on which above view was taken.]
The visitor who begins his acquaintance with Mount Hood on the north
side has, from Cloud Cap Inn, four interesting glaciers within a radius
of a few miles. Immediately before the Inn, Eliot glacier displays its
entire length of two miles, its snout being only a few rods away. West
of this, Coe and Ladd glaciers divide the north face with the Eliot. All
three have their source in neighboring reservoirs near the summit, which
have been greatly reduced in area. This, with the resulting shrinkage
in the glaciers, is shown by the high lateral moraines left as the width
of the ice streams has lessened. On the east slope is a fine cliff
glacier, the Newton Clark, separated from the Eliot by Cooper Spur, a
long ridge that furnishes the only feasible north-side route for
climbers to the summit.
[Illustration: Part of the "bergschrund" above Crater Rock. A
bergschrund is a crevasse of which the lower side lies much below its
upper side. It is caused by a sharp fall in the slope, or by the ice at
the head of a glacier pulling away from the packed snow above.]
Climbing Cooper Spur is a tedious struggle up a long cinder slope, but
it has its reward in fine views of the near-by glaciers and a wide
outlook over the surrounding country. A tramp of three miles from the
Inn covers the easier grade, and brings the climber to a height of eight
thousand feet. A narrow, snow-covered chine now offers a windy path to
the foot of the steeper slope (See p. 60). The climb ends with the
conquest of a half-mile of vertical elevation over a grade that tests
muscle, wind and nerve. This is real mountaineering, and as the novice
clutches the rocks, or carefully follows in the steps cut by the guide,
he recalls a command well adapted to such trying situations: "Prove all
things; hold fast that which is good." But the danger is more apparent
than real, and the goal is soon reached.
[Illustration: Prof. Harry Fielding Reid and party exploring Zigzag
glacier, south side of Mount Hood. Illumination Rock is seen beyond.]
The south-side route, followed by the Barlow party of 1854, was long
deemed the only practicable trail to the summit. Many years later,
William A. Langille discovered the route up from Cooper Spur. The only
accident charged against this path befell a stranger who was killed in
trying to climb it without a guide. Its steepness is, indeed, an
advantage, as it requires less time than the other route. Climbers
frequently ascend by one trail and descend by the other, thus making the
trip between Cloud Cap Inn and Government Camp in a day.
[Illustration: Mazamas climbing the "Hog-back," above Crater Rock, and
passing this rock on the descent.]
The actual summit of Mount Hood is a narrow but fairly level platform, a
quarter of a mile long, which is quickly seen to be part of the rim of
the ancient crater. Below it, on the north, are the heads of three
glaciers already mentioned, the Eliot, Coe and Ladd; and looking down
upon them, the climber perceives that here the mountain has been so much
cut away as to be less a slope than a series of precipices, with very
limited benches which serve as gathering grounds of snow. (See pp. 55,
67 and 70.) These shelves feed the lower ice-streams with a diet of
avalanches that is year by year becoming less bountiful as this front
becomes more steep. Soon, indeed, geologically speaking, the present
summit, undermined by the ice, must fall, and the mountain take on a new
aspect, with a lower, broader top. Thus while the beautiful verse which
I have quoted under the view of Mount Hood from White Salmon (p. 56) is
admirable poetry, its last line is very poor geology. This, however,
need not deter any present-day climbers!
On the south side of the summit ridge a vastly different scene is
presented. Looking down over its easy slope, one recognizes even more
clearly than from the north-side view that Mount Hood is merely a wreck
of its former graceful cone, a torn and disintegrating remnant, with
very modest pretensions to symmetry, after all, but still a fascinating
exhibit of the work of such Gargantuan forces as hew and whittle such
peaks.
[Illustration: Portland Ski Club on south side of Mount Hood, above
Government Camp.]
The crater had a diameter of about half a mile. Its north rim remains in
the ridge on which our climber stands. All the rest of its circumference
has been torn away, but huge fragments of its wall are seen far below,
on the right and left, in "cleavers" named respectively Illumination
Rock and Steel's Cliff. One of these recalls several displays of red
fire on the mountain by the Mazamas. The other great abutment was
christened in honor of the first president of that organization.
Apart from these ridges, the entire rim is missing; but below the
spectator, at what must have been the center of its circle, towers a
great cone of lava, harder than the andesitic rocks and the scoriæ which
compose the bulk of the mountain. This is known as Crater Rock. It is
the core of the crater, formed when the molten lava filling its neck
cooled and hardened. Around it the softer mass has worn down to the
general grade of the south slope, which extends five miles from just
below the remaining north rim at the head of the glaciers to the
neighborhood of Government Camp, far down on the Cascade plateau. The
grade is much less than thirty degrees. Over the slope flow down two
glaciers, the Zigzag on the west, and the White River glacier on the
east, of Crater Rock.
[Illustration: Mount Hood Lily.
(_L. Washingtonianum_)]
It is sometimes said that the south side of the old summit was blown
away by a terrific explosion. That is improbable, in view of Crater
Rock, which indicates a dormant volcano when the south side was
destroyed. The mountain was doubtless rent by ice rather than by fire.
The mass of ice and snow in and upon the crater broke apart the
comparatively loose wall, and pushed its shattered tuffs and cinders far
down the slopes. Forests were buried, old canyons were filled, and the
whole southwest side of the mountain was covered with the fan-shaped
outwash from the breach. Through this debris of the ancient crater the
streams at the feet of the glaciers below are cutting vast ravines which
can be seen from the heights above. (See illustrations, pp. 77-81.)
[Illustration: Mazama party exploring White River glacier, Mount Hood.]
The central situation of Mount Hood makes the view from its summit
especially worth seeking. From the Pacific to the Blue Mountains, south
almost to the California line, and north as far, it embraces an area
equal to a great state, with four hundred miles of the undulating
Cascade summits and a dozen calm and radiant snow-peaks. The Columbia
winds almost at its foot, and a multitude of lakes, dammed by glacial
moraines and lava dikes, nestle in its shadow. This view "covers more
history," as Lyman points out, than that from any other of our peaks.
About its base the Indians hunted, fished and warred. Across its flank
rolled the great tide of Oregon immigration, in the days of the ox-team
and settler's wagon. It has seen the building of two states. It now
looks benignly down upon the prosperous agriculture and growing cities
of the modern Columbia basin, and no doubt contemplates with serenity
the time when its empire shall be one of the most populous as it is one
of the most beautiful and fertile regions in America. No wonder the
shapely mountain lifts its head with pride!
[Illustration: Newton Clark glacier, east side of Mt. Hood, seen from
Cooper Spur, with Mt. Jefferson fifty miles south.]
Returning to the glaciers of the north side, we note that all three end
at an altitude close to six thousand feet. None of them has cut a deep,
broad bed for itself like the great radiating canyons which dissect the
Rainier National Park and protect its glaciers down to a level averaging
four thousand feet. Instead, these glaciers lie up on the side of Mount
Hood, in shallow beds which they no longer fill; and are banked between
double and even triple border moraines, showing successive advances and
retreats of the glaciers. (See illustration, top of p. 59.) The larger
moraines stand fifty to a hundred feet above the present ice-streams,
thus indicating the former glacier levels. No vegetation appears on
these desolate rock and gravel dikes. The retreat of the glaciers was
therefore comparatively recent.
[Illustration: Looking from Mount Jefferson, along the summits of the
Cascades, to Mount Hood.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Shadow of Mount Hood, seen from Newton Clark glacier shortly before
sunset. View shows two branches of East Fork of Hood River, fed by the
glacier, and the canyon of the East Fork, turning north. Beyond it
(left) are Tygh Hills and wheat fields of the Dufur country. On the
right is Juniper Flat, with the Deschutes canyon far beyond.]
[Illustration: Snout of Newton Clark glacier.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORD
Mount Hood and Hood River, seen from a point twenty miles north of the
mountain.]
Eliot glacier has been found by measurement near its end, to have a
movement of about fifty feet a year. On the steeper slope above, it is
doubtless much greater. All the three glaciers are heavily covered, for
their last half mile, with rocks and dirt which they have freighted down
from the cliffs above, or dug up from their own beds in transit. None of
the lateral moraines extends more than two or three hundred yards below
the snout of its glacier. Each glacier, at its end, drops its remnant of
ice into a deep V-shaped ravine, in which, not far below, trees of good
size are growing. Hence it would not seem that these north-side
glaciers have ever extended much farther than they do at present. The
ravine below Eliot glacier, however, half a mile from the snout, is said
to show glacial markings on its rocky sides. It is evident, in any case,
that the deep V cuttings now found below the glaciers are work of the
streams. If these glaciers extended farther, it was at higher levels
than their present stream channels. As the glaciers receded, their
streams have cut the deep gorges in the soft conglomerates. Between
Eliot and Coe glaciers are large snow-fields, ending much farther up
than do the glaciers; and below these, too, the streams have trenched
the slope. (See illustration, p. 57.)
[Illustration: Lava Flume near Trout Lake, about thirty feet wide and
forty feet high.]
[Illustration: Y. M. C. A. party from North Yakima at Red Butte, an
extinct volcano on north side of Mount Adams.]
Between Coe and Ladd glaciers is a high rocky ridge known as Barrett
Spur, from which, at nearly 8,000 feet, one may obtain glorious views of
the peak above, the two glaciers sweeping down its steep face and the
sea of ranges stretching westward. (See illustrations, pp. 69 and 75.)
Barrett Spur may have been part of the original surface of the mountain,
but is more likely the remnant of a secondary cone, ice and weathering
having destroyed its conical shape. From its top, the climber looks over
into the broad-bottomed canyon of Sandy River, fed by the large and
small Sandy glaciers of the west slope. (See pp. 71 and 76.) This canyon
and that of the Zigzag River, south of it, from Zigzag glacier, are
"plainly glacier-sculptured," as Sylvester declares. The same is true of
the canyon lying below the White River glacier, on the southeast slope.
In journeying to Government Camp, one may see abundant evidence of the
glacial origin of the Sandy and Zigzag canyons. The White River Canyon
has been thoroughly explored and described by Prof. Reid.
All three of these wide U-shaped canyons were once occupied by great
glaciers, which left their record in the scorings upon the sides of the
gorges; in the mesas of finely ground moraine which they spread over the
bottoms and through which the modern rivers have cut deep ravines; in
trees broken and buried by the glaciers in this drift; in the fossil ice
lying beneath it, and in huge angular boulders left standing on the
valley floors, several miles from the mountain.
[Illustration: Ice Cave in lava beds near Trout Lake.]
Sandy glacier extends three hundred feet farther down the slope than do
the north-side glaciers, but the Zigzag and White River glaciers,
flowing out of the crater, end a thousand feet higher. This is due not
only to the smaller reservoirs which feed them and to their southern
exposure, but also doubtless to the easier grade, which holds the ice
longer on the slope. On the east side of the peak is a broad ice-stream,
the Newton Clark glacier, which also ends at a high altitude, dropping
its ice over a cliff into deep ravines at the head of East Fork of Hood
River. This glacier, well seen from Cooper Spur, completes the circuit
of the mountain. (See pp. 83 and 84.)
[Illustration: Mount Adams, elevation 12,307 feet.]
Sylvester suggests that Mount Hood may not be extinct but sleeping. For
this, however, there is little more evidence that may be discovered on
other Northwestern peaks. About Crater Rock, steam jets are found, gas
escapes, and the rocks are warm in many places. "Fumaroles" exist, where
the residuary heat causes openings in the snow bed. Sylvester reports
dense smoke and steam issuing from Crater Rock by day and a brilliant
illumination there at night, in August, 1907. But volcanoes sometimes
contradict prophecy, and no further intimations of trouble having since
been offered, this display may be deemed the last gasp of a dying
monster rather than an awakening toward new life.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Telephoto view of Mount Adams, from the northeast side of Mount St.
Helens, at elevation of 7,000 feet, overlooking the densely timbered
ranges of the Cascades.]
MOUNT ADAMS.
[Illustration: Mount Adams from Trout Creek, at Guler, near Trout Lake;
distance twelve miles.]
[Illustration: Climbers on South Butte, the hard lava neck of a crater
on south slope, left by weathering of the softer materials of its cone.
Elevation, 7,800 feet. The usual route to summit leads up the talus on
right.]
Going up the White Salmon Valley toward Mount Adams, the visitor quickly
realizes that he is in a different geological district from that around
Mount Hood. The Oregon peak is mainly a pile of volcanic rocks and
cinders ejected from its crater. Little hard basalt is found, and in all
its circumference I know of only one large surface area of new lava.
This is a few miles north of Cloud Cap, and so recent that no trees
grow on it. But north of the Columbia, one meets evidences of
comparatively recent lava sheets in many parts of the valley. Some
obviously have no connection with Mount Adams; they flowed out of
fissures on the ridges. But these beds of volcanic rock become more
apparent, and are less covered with soil, as we approach the mountain,
until, long before timber line is reached, dikes and streams of basalt,
as yet hardly beginning to disintegrate, are found on all sides of the
peak.
[Illustration: Dawn on Mount Adams, telephotographed from Guler, at 4 a.
m., showing the three summit peaks, of which the middle one is the
highest. The route of the climbers is up the south slope, seen on
right.]
[Illustration: Foraging in the snow. The Mount Adams country supports
hundreds of large flocks of sheep.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Steel's Cliff, southeast side of Mount Hood. In the distance is seen
Juniper Flat, in eastern Oregon.]
The form and slope of Mount Adams tell of an age far greater than Mount
Hood's, but its story is not, like that of Hood, the legible record of a
simple volcanic cone. It wholly lacks the symmetry of such a pile.
Viewed from a distance, it sits very majestically upon the summit of one
of the eastern ranges of the Cascades. As we approach, however, it is
seen to have little of the conical shape of Hood, still less that of
graceful St. Helens, which is young and as yet practically unbroken. Its
summit has been much worn down by ice or perhaps by explosions. Some
of its sides are deeply indented, and all are vastly irregular in angle
and markings--here a face now too steeply cut to hold a glacier, but
showing old glacial scorings far down its slope; there another terraced
and ribbed with waves and dikes of lava. The mountain is a long ridge
rather than a round peak, and close inspection shows it to be a
composite of several great cones, leaning one upon another,--the product
of many craters acting in successive ages. On its ancient, scarred
slopes, a hundred modern vents have added to the ruggedness and interest
of the peak. Many of these blowholes built parasitic cones, from which
the snows of later centuries have eroded the loose external mass,
leaving only the hard lava cores upstanding like obelisks. Other vents
belched out vast sheets of rock that will require a century more of
weathering to make hospitable even to the sub-alpine trees most humble
in their demands for soil.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER.
Ice Castle and great Crevasse, near the head of Eliot Glacier, Mt. Hood.
"Touched by a light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God's great pictures hung."--Whittier.]
[Illustration: Mazamas climbing a 40° stairway of shattered basalt,
north side of Mount Adams.]
[Illustration: Mount Adams from one of the many lakes on its southeast
slope. On ridge above, near the end of Mazama glacier, a hotel is to be
erected.]
Mount Adams therefore presents a greater variety of history, a more
complex and fascinating problem for the student to unravel, than any of
its neighbors. This interest extends to the district about it, a
country of new lava flows covering much of the older surface. The same
conditions mark the region surrounding the newer peak, St. Helens,
thirty miles west. In each district, sheets of molten rock have been
poured across an ancient and heavily forested land. Thus as we travel up
the rich valleys leading from the Columbia to either peak, we meet
everywhere the phenomena of vulcanism.
[Illustration: Climbers ascending from South Peak to Middle Peak on
Mount Adams, with the "bergschrund" above Klickitat glacier on right.
This central dome is about 500 feet higher than South Peak.]
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from Happy Valley, south side.
Elevation about 7,000 feet. Mazama glacier is on right.]
The lava sheet flowing around or over a standing or fallen tree took a
perfect impression of its trunk and bark. Thousands of these old tree
casts are found near both Adams and St. Helens. Where the lava reached a
watercourse, it flowed down in a deeper stream, a river of liquid rock.
Lava is a poor conductor of heat; hence the stream cooled more quickly
on the surface than below. Soon a crust was formed, like the ice over a
creek in winter. Under it the lava flowed on and out, as the flood
stopped, leaving a gallery or flume. Later flows filled the great drain
again and again, adding new strata to its roof, floor and sides, and
lessening its bore. Long after the outflows ceased, weathering by heat
and frost broke openings here and there. Many of the flumes were choked
with drift. But others, in the newer lava beds, may be explored for
miles. It was from the lava caves of northern California that the Modoc
Indians waged their famous war in the Seventies.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, from Snow-Plow Mountain, three miles
southeast of the snow line; elevation 5,070 feet, overlooking the broad
"park" country west of Hellroaring Canyon.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, S. C. SMITH
Wind-whittled ice near the summit of Mount Adams.]
The disintegration of the lava galleries in the Mount Adams field has of
course produced caves of all sorts and sizes. Where one of these is
closed at one end with debris, so that the summer air cannot circulate
to displace the heavier cold remaining from winter, the cave, if it has
a water supply, becomes an ice factory. The Trout Lake district has
several interesting examples of such _glacieres_, as they have been
named, where one may take refuge from July or August heat above ground,
and, forty feet below, in a cave well protected from sun and summer
breeze, find great masses of ice, with more perhaps still forming as
water filters in from a surface lake or an underground spring. The
Columbia River towns as far away as Portland and The Dalles formerly
obtained ice from the Trout Lake caves, but at present they supply only
some near-by farmers.
[Illustration: Mazama glacier, at head of Hellroaring Canyon. Upper view
shows floor of canyon, a mile below the glacier, with the "Ridge of
Wonders" on right. Lower view is from ridge west of the canyon, near end
of Mazama glacier, elevation nearly 7,000 feet. Note great lateral
moraine which the glacier has built on left.]
Mount Adams is ascended without difficulty by either its north or south
slope. On the east and west faces, the cliffs and ice cascades appall
even the expert alpinist. As yet, so far as I can learn, no ascents have
been made over these slopes. The southern route is the more popular one.
It leads by well-marked trails up from Guler or Glenwood, over a
succession of terraces clad in fine, open forest; ascends McDonald
Ridge, amid increasing barriers of lava; passes South Butte, a decaying
pillar of red silhouetted against the black rocks and white snow-fields;
crosses many a caldron of twisted and broken basalt,--"Devil's Half
Acres" that once were the hot, vomiting mouths of drains from the fiery
heart of the peak; scales a giants' stairway tilted to forty degrees,
overlooking the west branch of Mazama glacier on one side and a small
unnamed glacier on the other; and at last gains the broad shoulder which
projects far on the south slope. (See illustrations, pp. 89 and 93.)
[Illustration: Nearing the summit, south side.]
[Illustration: Upper Ice Cascade of Klickitat glacier.]
Here, from a height of nine thousand feet, we look down on the low, wide
reservoir of Mazama glacier on the east, and up to the ice-falls above
Klickitat glacier on the higher slopes beyond. The great platform on
which we stand was built up by a crater, three thousand feet below the
summit. The climb to it has disclosed the fact that the mountain is
composed mostly of lava. Some of the ravine cuttings have shown lapilli
and cinders, but these are rarer than on the other Northwestern peaks.
The harder structure has resisted the erosion which is cutting so deeply
into the lower slopes of Hood. On Mount Adams, not only do the glaciers,
with one or two notable exceptions, lie up on the general surface of the
mountain, banked by their moraines; but their streams have cut few deep
ravines.
[Illustration: An Upland "Park," west of Hellroaring Canyon.]
[Illustration: Mount Adams, from the Ridge of Wonders, showing the great
amphitheater or "cirque" of Klickitat glacier, fed by avalanches from
the summit plateau. This is the most important example of glacial
sculpture on the mountain. Beyond, on the right, is seen the head of
Rusk glacier, while on the left is Mazama glacier. Note the stunted
sub-alpine trees scattered thinly over this ridge, even up to an
altitude of 7,000 feet.]
[Illustration: Storm on Klickitat Glacier, seen from the Ridge of
Wonders.]
From this point, the route becomes steeper, but is still over talus,
until the first of the three summit elevations, known as South Peak, is
reached. This is only five hundred feet below the actual summit, Middle
Peak, which is gained by a short, hard pull, generally over snow.
(See p. 94.) The north-side route is up a long, sharp ridge between Lava
and Adams glaciers (p. 104). Like the other path, its grade is at first
easy; but its last half mile of elevation is achieved over a slope even
steeper, and ending in a longer climb over the snow. Neither route,
however, offers so hard a finish as that which ends the Mount Hood
climb. From the timber-line on either side, the ascent requires six or
seven hours.
[Illustration: Snow cornice above the bergschrund at head of Klickitat
glacier, with another part of the same crevasse.]
The summit ridge is nearly a mile long and two-thirds as wide. It is the
gathering ground of the snows that feed Klickitat, Lyman, Adams and
White Salmon glaciers. (See map, p. 87.) Mazama, Rusk, Lava, Pinnacle
and Avalanche glaciers lie beneath cliffs too steep to carry
ice-streams. Their income is mainly collected from the slopes, and if
they receive snow from the broad summit at all, it is chiefly in the
avalanches of early summer. Nearly all the glaciers, however, are thus
fed in part, the steep east and west faces making Mount Adams famous for
its avalanches.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from the northeast, with the Lyman
glaciers in center, Rusk glacier on extreme left, and Lava glacier,
right. The ridge beyond Lava glacier is the north-side route to the
summit. The Lyman glaciers, like Adams glacier on the northwest side,
are noteworthy for their cascades of ice.]
From the summit on either side, the climber may look down sheer for half
a mile to the reservoirs and great ice cascades of the glaciers below.
It is seen that with the exception of the Rusk and Klickitat, which
are deeply embedded in canyons, the glaciers spread out, fan-like, on
the lower slopes, and are held up by their moraines. Most of them end at
elevations considerably above six thousand five hundred feet. The
difference in this respect between Adams and Hood is due, no doubt, to
lighter rainfall.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, ASAHEL CURTIS
Mount Adams from Sunnyside, Washington, with irrigation "ditch" in
foreground.]
[Illustration: Crevasse in Lava glacier, north side of Mount Adams.]
Of the two glaciers just mentioned the Klickitat is the larger and more
typical. The Rusk, however, is of interest because it flows, greatly
crevassed, down a narrow flume or couloir on the east slope. Its bed,
Reid suggests, may have been the channel of "a former lava flow, which,
hardening on the surface, allowed the liquid lava inside to flow out;
and later the top broke in." The Klickitat glacier lies in a much larger
canyon, which it has evidently cut for itself. This is one of the most
characteristic glacial amphitheaters in America, resembling, though on a
smaller scale, the vast Carbon glacier _cirque_ which is the crowning
glory of the Rainier National Park. The Klickitat basin is a mile wide.
Into it two steep ice-streams cascade from the summit, and avalanches
fall from a cliff which rises two thousand feet between them. (See pp.
98 and 99.)
[Illustration: North Peak of Mount Adams, with The Mountaineers
beginning their ascent, in 1911. Their route led up the ridge seen here,
which divides Lava glacier, on the left, from Adams glacier, on extreme
right.]
The glacier is more than two miles long. It ends at an elevation of less
than six thousand feet, covered with debris from a large medial moraine
formed by the junction of the two tributary glaciers. Like the other
Mount Adams glaciers, and indeed nearly all glaciers in the northern
hemisphere, it is shrinking, and has built several moraines on each
side. These extend half a mile below its present snout, and the inner
moraines are underlaid with ice, showing the retreat has been recent.
South of the Klickitat glacier, a part of the original surface of the
peak remains in the great Ridge of Wonders. Rising a thousand feet above
the floor of Hellroaring Canyon, which was formerly occupied by Mazama
glacier, now withdrawn to the slope above, this is the finest
observation point on the mountain. "The wonderful views of the eastern
precipices and glaciers," says Reid, "the numerous dikes, the well
preserved parasitic cone of Little Mount Adams, and the curious forms of
volcanic bombs scattered over its surface entirely justify the name Mr.
Rusk has given to this ridge."
[Illustration: Snow Bridge over Killing Creek, north of Mount Adams.]
Adams glacier, upon the northwest slope, with a length of three miles,
is the largest on the mountain. This and the two beautiful ice streams
on the northeast, named after Prof. W. D. Lyman, are notable for their
ice-falls, half-mile drops of tumbling, frozen rivers.
The naming of the mountain was a result of the movement started by Hall
J. Kelley, the Oregon enthusiast, in 1839. The northwestern snow-peaks,
so far as shown in maps of the period, bore the names given by
Vancouver as part of his annexation for George III. The utility, beauty
and historic fitness of the significant Indian place names did not occur
to a generation busy in ousting the Indian from his land; but our
grandfathers remembered George III. Kelley and other patriotic men of
the time proposed to call the Cascades the "Presidents' Range," and to
christen the several snow-peaks for individual ex-presidents of the
United States. But the second quarter of the last century knew little
about Oregon, and cared less. The well-meant but premature effort
failed, and the only names of the presidents which have stuck are Adams
and Jefferson. Lewis and Clark mistook Mount Adams for St. Helens, and
estimated it "perhaps the highest pinnacle in America." The Geological
Survey has found its height to be 12,307 feet. Mount Adams was first
climbed in 1854 by a party in which were Col. B. F. Shaw, Glenn Aiken
and Edward J. Allen.
[Illustration: North-side Cleaver, with Lava glacier on left. This sharp
spine was climbed by The Mountaineers and the North Yakima Y. M. C. A.
party in 1911.]
MOUNT ST. HELENS.
The world was indebted for its first knowledge of Mount St. Helens to
Vancouver. Its name is one of the batch which he fastened in 1792 upon
our Northwestern landmarks. These honored a variety of persons, ranging
from Lord St. Helens, the diplomat, and pudgy Peter Rainier, of the
British Admiralty, down to members of the explorer's crew.
[Illustration: Looking across Adams glacier, northwest side of Mount
Adams, from ridge shown above.]
[Illustration: "The Mountain that Was 'God'," the great peak which the
Indians reverenced and named "Tacoma," seen above the clouds of a rainy
day, from the summit of Mount Adams, distant forty miles.
"This," said a well-known lecturer, as the picture was
thrown upon his screen, "is the scene the angels look
down upon!"]
The youngest of the Cascade snow-peaks, St. Helens is also the most
symmetrical in its form, and to many of its admirers the most beautiful.
Unlike Hood and Adams, it does not stand upon the narrow summit of one
of the Cascade ranges, but rises west of the main ridges of that
system from valley levels about one thousand feet above the sea.
Surrounded by comparatively low ridges, it thus presents its perfect and
impressive cone for almost its entire height of ten thousand feet.
[Illustration: Northwest slope of Mount Adams, with Adams glacier, three
miles long, the largest on the mountain. It has an ice-fall of two
thousand feet. The low-lying reservoir of Pinnacle glacier is on extreme
right, and the head of Lava glacier on left.]
The mountain is set well back from the main traveled roads, in the great
forest of southwestern Washington. It is the center of a fine lake and
river district which attracts sportsmen as well as mountain climbers. A
large company visiting it must carry in supplies and camp equipment, but
small parties may find accommodation at Spirit Lake on the north, and
Peterson's ranch on Lewis River, south of the peak. The first is four,
the second is eight, miles from the snow line. Visitors from Portland,
Tacoma or Seattle, bound for the north side, leave the railway at Castle
Rock, whence a good automobile road (forty-eight miles) leads to the
south side of Spirit Lake. Peterson's may be reached by road from
Woodland (forty-five miles) or from Yacolt (thirty miles). Well-marked
trails lead from either base to camping grounds at timber line. The
mountain is climbed by a long, easy slope on the south, or by a much
steeper path on the north.
Like Mount Adams, St. Helens is largely built of lava, but the outflows
have been more recent here than upon or near the greater peak. The
volcano was in eruption several times between 1830 and 1845. The sky at
Vancouver was often darkened, and ashes were carried as far as The
Dalles. To these disturbances, probably, are due the great outflows of
new lava covering the south and west sides of the mountain, and much of
the country between it and the North Fork of Lewis River. The molten
stream flowed westward to Goat Mountain and the "Buttes," of which it
made islands; threw a dike across a watercourse and created Lake
Merrill; and turning southward, filled valleys and overwhelmed good
forest with sheets of basalt. Upon the slope just north of Peterson's, a
great synclinal thus buried presents one of the latest pages in the
volcanic history of the Columbia basin.
[Illustration: Mount Adams from the southwest, with White Salmon glacier
(left) and Avalanche glacier (right) flowing from a common source, the
cleft between North and Middle Peaks. The latter, however, derives most
of its support from slopes farther to right. Note the huge terminal
moraines built by these glaciers in their retreat. Pinnacle glacier is
on extreme left.]
[Illustration: Mount St. Helens, elevation 10,000 feet.]
Many hours may be spent with interest upon this lava bed. It is an area
of the wildest violence, cast in stone. Swift, ropy streams, cascades,
whirling eddies, all have been caught in their course. "Devil's Punch
Bowl," "Hell's Kitchen," "Satan's Stairway" are suggestive phrases of
local description. The underground galleries here are well worth
visiting. Tree tunnels and wells abound. Most important of all, the
struggle seen everywhere of the forest to gain a foothold on this iron
surface illustrates Nature's method of hiding so vast and terrible a
callus upon her face. It is evident that the healing of the wound began
as soon as the lava cooled, and that, while still incomplete, it is
unceasingly prosecuted. (See p. 111.)
[Illustration: Scenes in the canyon of the North Fork of Lewis River,
fed by the glaciers of Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORD
Columbia River and Mount Adams, seen from Hood River, Oregon.
"And forests ranged like armies, round and round
At feet of mountains of eternal snow;
And valleys all alive with happy sound,--
The song of birds; swift streams' delicious flow;
The mystic hum of million things that grow."--Helen Hunt Jackson.]
The first volcanic dust from the uneasy crater of St. Helens had no
sooner lodged in some cleft opened by the contraction of cooling than a
spore or seed carried by the wind or dropped by a bird made a start
toward vegetation. Failing moisture, and checked by lack of soil, the
lichen or grass or tiny shrub quickly yielded its feeble existence in
preparation for its successor. The procession of rain and sun encouraged
other futile efforts to find rootage. Each of these growths
lengthened by its decay the life of the next. With winter came frost,
scaling flakes from the hard surface, or penetrating the joints and
opening fissures in the basalt. Further refuge was thus made ready for
the dust and seeds and moisture of another season. The moss and plants
were promoters as well as beneficiaries of this disintegration. Their
smallest rootlets found the water in the heart of the rocks, and growing
strong upon it, shattered their benefactors.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Southwest side of Mount Adams, reflected in Trout Lake, twelve miles
south of the mountain.]
[Illustration: Scenes on great lava field south of Mount St. Helens. The
lodgepole pine thicket above shows struggle of forest to gain a foothold
on the rich soil slowly forming over new volcanic rock. The peak itself,
with stunted forest at its base, is seen next; and below, one of many
"tree tunnels," formed when the lava flowed over or around a tree,
taking a perfect cast of its bark.]
Soon more ambitious enterprises were undertaken. Huckleberry bushes,
fearless even of so unfriendly a surface, started from every depression
among the rocks. The first small trees appeared. Weakling pines, dwarf
firs and alders, shot up for a few feet of hurried growth in the spring
moisture, taking the unlikely chance of surviving the later drought.
Here and there a seedling outlasted the long, dry summer, and began to
be a real tree. Quickly exhausting its little handful of new earth, the
daring upstart must have perished had not the melting snows brought
help. They filled the hollows with wash from the higher slopes. The
treelets found that their day had come, and seizing upon these rich but
shallow soil beds, soon covered them with thickets of spindling
lodgepole pines and deciduous brush. Such pygmy forests are at length
common upon this great field of torn and decaying rock, and all are
making their contributions of humus year by year to the support of
future tree giants. These will rise by survival of the fittest as the
forest floor deepens and spreads.
[Illustration: Lava Flume south of Mount St. Helens, a tunnel several
miles in length, about twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide.]
[Illustration: Entrance to Lava Cave shown above. Note strata in roof,
showing successive lava flows; also ferns growing from roof.]
[Illustration: Telephotograph of Mount St. Helens, from the lower part
of Portland, with the summit peaks of Mount Rainier-Tacoma in distance
on left, and the Willamette River in foreground.]
St. Helens, although much visited, has not yet been officially surveyed
or mapped. Its glaciers are not named, nor has the number of true
ice-streams been determined. Those on the south and southwest are
insignificant. Elsewhere, the glaciers are short and broad, and with one
exception, occupy shallow beds. On the southeast, there is a remarkable
cleft, shown on page 115, which is doubtless due to volcanic causes
rather than erosion, and from which the largest glacier issues. Another
typical glacier, distinguished by the finest crevasses and ice-falls on
the peak, tumbles down a steep, shallow depression on the north slope,
west of the battered parasitic cone of "Black Butte." West of this
glacier, in turn, ridges known as the "Lizard" and the "Boot" mark the
customary north-side path to the summit. (See p. 118.) Beyond these
landmarks, on the west side of the peak, a third considerable glacier
feeds South Toutle River. The ravines cut by this stream will repay a
visit. (See p. 116.)
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, JAS. WAGGENER, JR.
Mount St. Helens, from Chelatchie Prairie on Lewis River, distance
twenty miles. Shows a typical farm clearing in the forest.]
[Illustration: Mount St. Helens, seen from Twin Buttes, twenty miles
away, across the Cascades. View shows the remarkable cleft or canyon on
the southeast face of the peak.]
The slopes not covered with new lava sheets and dikes exhibit, below the
snow-line, countless bombs hurled up from the crater, with great fields
of pumice embedding huge angular rocks that tell a story not written on
our other peaks. These hard boulders, curiously different from the soft
materials in which they lie, were fragments of the tertiary platform on
which the cone was erected. Torn off by the volcano, as it enlarged its
bore, they were shot out without melting or change in substance. On
every hand is proof that this now peaceful snow-mountain, which
resembles nothing else so much as a well-filled saucer of ice cream, had
a hot temper in its youth, and has passed some bad days even since the
coming of the white man.
The mountain was first climbed in August, 1853, by a party which
included the same T. J. Dryer who, a year later, took part in the first
ascent of Mount Hood. In a letter to _The Oregonian_ he said the party
consisted of "Messrs. Wilson, Smith, Drew and myself." They ascended the
south side. The other slopes were long thought too steep to climb, but
in 1893 Fred G. Plummer, of Tacoma, now Geographer of the United States
Forest Service, ascended the north side. His party included Leschi, a
Klickitat Indian, probably the first of his superstitious race to scale
a snow-peak. The climbers found evidence of recent activity in two
craters on the north slope, and photographed a curious "diagonal
moraine," as regular in shape as a railway embankment, which connected
the border moraines of a small glacier. The north side has since seen
frequent ascents.
[Illustration: Canyons of South Toutle River, west side of St. Helens.
These vast trenches in the soft pumice show by their V shape that they
have been cut by streams from the glaciers above, rather than by the
glaciers themselves, which, on this young peak, have probably never had
a much greater extension.]
The Mazamas, who had climbed St. Helens from the south in 1898, again
ascended it in 1908, climbing by the Lizard and Boot. This outing
furnished the most stirring chapter in the annals of American
mountaineering.
[Illustration: Lower Toutle Canyon, seen on left above. Note shattered
volcanic bomb.]
[Illustration: Northeast side of Mount St. Helens, from elevation of
6,000 feet, with Black Butte on the right.]
[Illustration: The Mazamas on summit of St. Helens shortly before
sunset. The rocks showing above the snow are parts of the rim of the
extinct crater. Mount Adams is seen, thirty-five miles away, on the
right, while Rainier-Tacoma is forty-five miles north. Photograph taken
at 7:15 p. m. The party did not get back to their camp till long after
midnight.]
The north-side route proved unexpectedly hard. After an all-day climb,
the party reached the summit only at seven o'clock. The descent after
nightfall required seven hours. The risk was great. Over the collar of
ice near the summit, at a grade of more than sixty degrees, the
twenty-five men and women slowly crept in steps cut by the leaders, and
clutching a single fifty-foot rope. Later came the bombardment of loose
rocks, as the party scattered down the slope. I quote from an account by
Frank B. Riley, secretary of the club, who was one of the leaders:
The safety of the entire party was in the keeping of
each member. One touch of hysteria, one slip of the
foot, one instant's loss of self-control, would have
precipitated the line, like a row of bricks, on the
long plunge down the ice cliff. Eight times the party
stood poised on its scanty foothold while the rope was
lowered. When, after an hour and a half, its last
member stepped in safety upon the rocks, there yet lay
before it five hours of work ere the little red eyes
below should widen into welcoming campfires.
Over great ridges, down into vast snowfields, for
hours they plunged and slid, while scouts ahead
shouted back warning of the crevasses. On, out of the
icy clutch of the silent mountain, they plodded. And
then, at last, the timber, and the fires and the hot
drinks and the warm blankets and the springy hemlock
boughs!
[Illustration: North side of St. Helens in winter, seen from Coldwater
Ridge, overlooking Spirit Lake. Shows the long ridge called "the
Lizard," because of its shape, with "the Boot" above it. On the
northeast slope is "Black Butte," probably a secondary crater.]
[Illustration: St. Helens, north side, seen from one mile below snow
line. Note the slight progress made by the forest upon the scant soil of
the pumice ridges; also, how greatly the angle of the sides, as viewed
here at the foot of the peak, differs from that shown in Dr. Lauman's
fine picture taken on Coldwater Ridge, five miles north. Both show the
mountain from the same direction, but the near view gives no true idea
of its steepness. Black Butte is on the left.]
[Illustration: Glacier scenes, north side of Mount St. Helens, east of
the "Lizard."]
Even this was not the most noteworthy adventure of the outing. One
evening, while the Mazamas gathered about their campfire at Spirit Lake,
a haggard man dragged himself out of the forest, and told of an injured
comrade lying helpless on the other side of the peak. The messenger and
two companions--Swedish loggers, all three--had crossed the mountain the
morning before. After they gained the summit and began the descent, a
plunging rock had struck one of the men, breaking his leg. His friends
had dragged him down to the first timber, and while one kept watch, the
other had encircled the mountain, in search of aid from the Mazamas.
Immediately a relief party of seven strong men, led by C. E. Forsyth of
Castle Rock, Washington, started back over the trailless route by which
the messenger had come. All night they scaled ridges, climbed into and
out of canyons, waded icy streams. Before dawn they reached the wounded
laborer. Mr. Riley says:
It was impossible to carry the man back through the
wild country around the peak. Below, the first cabin
on the Lewis River lay beyond a moat of forbidding
canyons. Above slanted the smooth slopes of St.
Helens. Placing the injured man upon a litter of
canvas and alpine stocks, they began the ascent of the
mountain with their burden. The day dawned and grew
old, and still these men crawled upward in frightful,
body-breaking struggle. Twelve hours passed, and they
had no food and no sleep, save as they fell
unconscious downward in the snow, as they did many
times, from fatigue and lack of nourishment. At four
o'clock, Anderson was again on the summit. Then,
without rest, came the descent to the north. Down
precipitous cliffs of ice they lowered him, as
tenderly as might be; down snow-slopes seared with
crevasses, shielding him from the falling rocks; over
ridges of ragged lava, until in the deepening darkness
of the second night they found themselves again at
timber. But in the net-work of canyons they had
selected the wrong one, and were lost. Here, at three
o'clock, they were found by a second relief party, and
guided over a painful five-mile journey home.
[Illustration: Finest of the St. Helens glaciers, north side, with Black
Butte on left. It is proposed to call this "Forsyth glacier," in honor
of C. E. Forsyth, leader in a memorable rescue.]
It was day when camp was reached. In an improvised hospital, a young
surgeon, aided by a trained nurse, both Mazamas, quickly set the broken
bones. Then they sent their patient comfortably away to the railroad and
a Portland hospital. Before the wagon started, Anderson, who had uttered
no groan in his two days of agony, struggled to a sitting posture, and
searched the faces of all in the crowd about him.
"Ay don't want ever to forget how you look," he said simply; "you who
have done all this yust for me."
It is fitting that such an event should be commemorated. With the
approval of Mr. Riley and other Mazamas who were present at the time, I
would propose that the north-side glacier already described, the most
beautiful of the St. Helens ice-streams, be named "Forsyth glacier," in
honor of the leader of this heroic rescue.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, ASAHEL CURTIS
Road among the Douglas Firs.]
[Illustration: Ships loading lumber at one of Portland's large mills.]
III.
THE FORESTS
By HAROLD DOUGLAS LANGILLE
As the lowlander cannot be said to have truly seen the
element of water at all, so even in his richest parks
and avenues he cannot be said to have truly seen
trees. For the resources of trees are not developed
until they have difficulty to contend with; neither
their tenderness of brotherly love and harmony, till
they are forced to choose their ways of life where
there is contracted room. The various action of trees,
rooting themselves in inhospitable rocks, stooping to
look into ravines, hiding from the search of glacial
winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine,
crowding down together to drink at sweetest streams,
climbing hand in hand the difficult slopes, gliding in
grave procession over the heavenward ridges--nothing
of this can be conceived among the unvexed and
unvaried felicities of the lowland forest.--_Ruskin:
"Modern Painters."_
[Illustration: Outposts of the Forest. Storm-swept White-bark Pines on
Mount Hood.]
STAND upon the icy summit of any one of the Columbia's snow-peaks, and
look north or west or south across the expanse of blue-green mountains
and valleys reaching to the sea; your eyes will rest upon the greatest
forest the temperate zone has produced within the knowledge of man. Save
where axe and fire have turned woodland into field or ghostly "burn,"
the mantle is spread. Along the broad crests of the Cascades, down the
long spurs that lead to the valleys, and across the Coast Range, lies a
wealth of timber equaled in no other region. The outposts of this great
army of trees will meet you far below.
[Illustration: Alpine Hemlocks at the timber-line on Mt. Adams. Mt. Hood
in distance.]
Rimming about your peak, braving winds and the snows that drift in the
lee of old moraines, and struggling to break through the timber-line,
six thousand feet above the sea, somber mountain hemlocks (_Tsuga
mertensiana_) and lighter white-bark pines (_Pinus albicaulis_) form the
thin vanguard of the forest. They meet the glaciers. They border the
snow-fields. They hide beneath their stunted, twisted forms the first
deep gashes carved in the mountain slopes by eroding streams. Valiant
protectors of less sturdy trees and plants, their whitened weather-sides
bear witness to a fierce struggle for life on the bleak shoulders of the
peaks.
[Illustration: Mazama Party resting among the sub-alpine firs in a
flower-carpeted "park" at the foot of Mount St. Helens]
Make your way, as the streamlets do, down to the alpine glades, on the
high plateaus, where anemone, erythronium and calochortus push their
buds through lingering snow-crusts. The scattered trees gather in their
first groups. Just within their shelter pause for a moment. Vague
distance is narrowed to a diminutive circle. The mystery of vastness
passes. Sharp indeed is the division between storm-swept barren and
forest shelter.
[Illustration: A Lowland Ravine. Cedars, Vine Maples, Devil's Club and
Ferns, near Mount St. Helens.]
Here ravines, decked with heather, hold streams from the
snowdrifts--streams that hunt the steepest descents, and glory in their
leaps from rock to rock and from cliff to pool. If it be the spring-time
of the mountains--late July--the mossy rills will be half concealed
beneath fragrant white azaleas that nod in the breezes blowing up with
the ascending sun and down with the turn of day. Trailing over the
rocks, or banked in the shelter of larger trees, creeping juniper
(_Juniperus communis_), least of our evergreens, stays the drifting
sands against the drive of winds or the wash of melting snows.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER
The "Noble" Fir.]
Along the streams and on sunny slopes and benches are the homes of the
pointed firs. Seeking protection from the storm, the spire-like trees
cluster in tiny groves, among which, like little bays of a lake, the
grassy flowered meadows run in and out, sun-lit, and sweet with rivulets
from the snows above. If you do not know these upland "parks," there is
rare pleasure awaiting you. A hundred mountain blossoms work figures of
white and red and orange and blue in the soft tapestry of green. In
such glades the hush is deep. Only the voice of a waterfall comes up
from the canyon, or the whistle of a marmot, the call of the
white-winged crows and the drone of insects break the stillness.
[Illustration: Dense Hemlock Forest, lower west slope of Mount Hood.]
[Illustration: Mount Hood from Ghost-tree Ridge. Whitened trunks of
trees killed by forest fires.]
[Illustration: An Island of Color in the Forest. Rhododendrons and Squaw
Grass on the west slope of Mount Hood.
"The common growth of mother-earth
Suffices me,--her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears."--Wordsworth.]
The outer rank of hemlock and fir droops its branches to the ground to
break the tempest's attack. Within, silver or lovely fir (_Abies
amabilis_) mingles with hardier forms. Its gray, mottled trunks are
flecked with the yellow-green of lichen or festooned with wisps
of moss down to the level of the big snows. And here, a vertical
mile above the sea, you meet the daring western hemlock (_Tsuga
heterophylla_), which braves the gale of ocean and mountain alike,
indifferent to all but fire. It is of gentle birth yet humble spirit. It
accepts all trees as neighbors. You meet it everywhere as you journey to
the sea. But on the uplands only, in a narrow belt like a scarf thrown
across the shoulders of the mountain, sub-alpine fir (_Abies
lasiocarpa_) sends up its dark, attenuated spires, in striking contrast
with the rounded crowns of its companions.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, ASAHEL CURTIS
Group of Red Cedars, five to eight feet in diameter.]
[Illustration: On the road to Government Camp, west of Mount Hood.
Broadleaf Maple on extreme right; Douglas Firs arching the roadway, and
White Fir on left.]
A little lower, the transition zone offers a noteworthy intermingling of
species. Down from the stormy heights come alpine trees to lock branches
with types from warmer levels. Here you see lodgepole pine (_Pinus
murrayana_), that wonderful restorer of waste places which sends forth
countless tiny seedlings to cover fire-swept areas and lava fields with
forerunners of a forest. Here, too, you will find western white pine
(_Pinus monticola_), the fair lady of the genus, whose soft, delicate
foliage, finely chiseled trunk, and golden brown cones denote its
gentleness; and Engelmann spruce (_Picea Engelmannii_) of greener blue
than any other, and hung with pendants of soft seed cones, saved from
pilfering rodents by pungent, bristling needles.
Here also are western larch or tamarack (_Larix occidentalis_); or,
rarely, on our northern peaks, Lyall's larch (_Larix Lyallii_), whose
naked branches send out tiny fascicles of soft pale leaves; and Noble
fir (_Abies nobilis_), stately, magnificent, proud of its supremacy over
all. And you may come upon a rare cluster of Alaska cedar (_Chamæcyparis
nootkatensis_), here at its southern limit, reaching down from the
Coast range of British Columbia almost to meet the Great sugar pines
(_Pinus lambertiana_) which come up from the granite heights of the
California sierra to play an important role in the southern Oregon
forests.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, WEISTER
Where man's a pygmy.
A Noble Fir, 175 feet to first limb.]
Across the roll of ridge and canyon, you see them all; and when you come
to know them well, each form, each shade of green, though far away, will
claim your recognition. Yonder, in a hollow of the hills, a cluster of
blue-green heads is raised above the familiar color of the hemlocks.
Cross to it, and stand amidst the crowning glory of Nature's art in
building trees. About you rise columns of Noble firs, faultless in
symmetry, straight as the line of sight, clean as granite shafts. Carry
the picture with you; nowhere away from the forests of the Columbia can
you look upon such perfect trees.
[Illustration: Firs and Hemlocks, in Clarke County, Washington.]
Westward of the Cascade summits the commercial forest of to-day extends
down from an elevation of about 3,500 feet. Intercepted by these
heights, the moisture-laden clouds are emptied on the crest of the
range. Eastward, the effects of decreasing precipitation are shown both
in species and in density. Tamarack, white fir and pines climb higher on
these warmer slopes. Along the base of the mountains, and beyond low
passes where strong west winds drive saturated clouds out over level
reaches, western yellow pine (_Pinus ponderosa_) becomes almost the only
tree. Over miles of level lava flow, along the upper Deschutes, this
species forms a great forest bounded on the east by rolling sage-brush
plains that stretch southward to the Nevada deserts. Beyond the
Deschutes drainage, where spurs of the Blue mountains rise to the levels
of clouds and moisture, the forest again covers the hills, spreading far
to the east until it disappears again in the broad, treeless valley of
Snake river. North of the Columbia the story is the same. From the lower
slopes of Mt. Adams great rolling bunch-grass downs and prairies reach
far eastward. Here and there, over these drier stretches, stand single
trees or clusters of western juniper (_Juniperus occidentalis_).
[Illustration: Fifty-year-old Hemlock growing on Cedar log. The latter,
which was centuries old before it matured and fell, was still sound
enough to yield many thousand shingles.]
But on the west slope of the Cascades, and over the Coast range, the
great forests spread in unbroken array, save where wide valleys have
been cleared by man or hillsides stripped by fire. Here, in the land of
warm sea winds and abundant moisture, the famous Douglas fir
(_Pseudotsuga taxifolia_), Pacific red cedar (_Thuja plicata_) and
tideland spruce (_Picea sitchensis_) attain their greatest development.
These are the monarchs of the matchless Northwestern forests, to which
the markets of the world are looking more and more as the lines of
exhausted supply draw closer.
[Illustration: Sawyers preparing to "fall" a large Tideland Spruce.]
Douglas fir recalls by its name one of the heroes of science, David
Douglas, a Scotch naturalist who explored these forests nearly ninety
years ago, and discovered not only this particular giant of the woods,
but also the great sugar pine and many other fine trees and plants. As a
pioneer botanist, searching the forest, Douglas presented a surprising
spectacle to the Indians. "The Man of Grass" they called him, when they
came to understand that he was not bent on killing the fur-bearing
animals for the profit to be had from their pelts.
[Illustration: Sugar Pine, Douglas Fir, and Yellow Pine.]
The splendid conifer which woodsmen have called after him is one of the
kings of all treeland. The most abundant species of the Northwest, it is
also, commercially, the most important. Sometimes reaching a height of
more than 250 feet, it grows in remarkably close stands, and covers vast
areas with valuable timber that will keep the multiplying mills of
Oregon and Washington sawing for generations. In the dense shade of the
forests, it raises a straight and stalwart trunk, clear of limb for a
hundred feet or more. On the older trees, its deeply furrowed bark is
often a foot thick. Trees of eight feet diameter are at least three
hundred years old, and rare ones, much larger, have been cut showing an
age of more than five centuries.
To these areas of the greatest trees must come all who would know the
real spirit of the forest, at once beneficent and ruthless. Here nature
selects the fittest. The struggle for soil below and light above is
relentless. The weakling, crowded and overshadowed, inevitably deepens
the forest floor with its fallen trunk, adding to the humus that covers
the lavas, and nourishing in its decay the more fortunate rival that has
robbed it of life. Here, too, with the architectural splendor of the
trees, one feels the truth of Bryant's familiar line:
The groves were God's first temples.
The stately evergreens raise their rugged crowns far toward the sky,
arching gothic naves that vault high over the thick undergrowth of ferns
and vine maples. In such scenes, it is easy to understand the woodsman's
solace, of which Herbert Bashford tells in his "Song of the Forest
Ranger:"
I would hear the wild rejoicing
Of the wind-blown cedar tree,
Hear the sturdy hemlock voicing
Ancient epics of the sea.
Forest aisles would I be winding,
Out beyond the gates of Care;
And in dim cathedrals finding
Silence at the shrine of Prayer.
* * * * *
Come and learn the joy of living!
Come and you will understand
How the sun his gold is giving
With a great, impartial hand!
How the patient pine is climbing,
Year by year to gain the sky;
How the rill makes sweetest rhyming
Where the deepest shadows lie!
[Illustration: Yellow Cedar, with young Silver Fir.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, GIFFORD
One of the Kings of Treeland--A Douglas Fir.]
Fir, spruce and cedar you will see along the slopes of the Cascades in
varying density and grandeur, from thickets of slender trees reclaiming
fire-swept lands to broken ranks of patriarchs whose crowns have swayed
before the storms of centuries. Among the foot hills, the pale gray
"grand" or white firs (_Abies grandis_) rear their domes above the
common plane in quest of light, occasionally attaining a height of 275
feet, while the lowly yew (_Taxus brevifolia_), of which the warrior of
an earlier time fashioned his bow, overhangs the noisy streams. In the
same habitat, where the little rivers debouch into the valleys, you may
see the broad-leaf maple, Oregon ash, cottonwood, and a score of lesser
deciduous trees on which the filtered rays of sunshine play in softer
tones.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, JAS. WAGGENER, JR.
Firs and Vine Maples in Washington Forest.]
Here and there in the Willamette valley you meet foothill yellow pine
(_Pinus ponderosa var. benthamiana_), near relative of the western
yellow pine. Oregon oak (_Quercus garryana_) occurs sparingly throughout
the valleys, or reaches up the western foothills of the Willamette,
until it meets the great unbroken forest of the Coast Range.
[Illustration: Towing a log raft out to sea, bound for the California
markets.]
The dense lower forests are never gaily decked, so little sunlight
enters. But in early summer, back among the mountains, you may find
tangles of half-prostrate rhododendron, from which, far as the eye can
reach, the rose-pink gorgeous flowers give back the tints of sunshine
and the iridescent hues of raindrops. Mingled with the flush of "laurel"
blossoms are nodding plumes of creamy squaw grass, the beautiful
xerophyllum. Often this queenly upland flower covers great areas,
hiding the desolation wrought by forest fires. Its sheaves of fibrous
rootstocks furnish the Indian women material for their basket-making;
hence the most familiar of its many names. The varied green of
huckleberry bushes is everywhere. They are the common ground cover.
[Illustration: A "Burn" on the slopes of Mount Hood, overgrown with
Squaw Grass. Such fire-swept areas are quickly covered with mountain
flowers, of which this beautiful cream-colored plume is one of the most
familiar. Its roots yield a fiber used by the Indians in making
baskets.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, GIFFORD
A Noble Fir.]
In valley woodlands, the dogwood, here a tree of fair proportions,
lights up the somber forest with round, white eyes that peer out through
bursting leafbuds, early harbingers of summer. The first blush of color
comes with the unfolding of the pink and red racemes of flowering wild
currant. Later, sweet syringa fills the air with the breath of orange
blossoms; and spirea, the Indian arrowwood, hangs its tassels among the
forest trees or on the bushy hills. But the presence of deciduous trees
and shrubs, as well as their beauty, is best known in autumn, when
maples brighten the woods with yellow rays; when dogwood and vine maple
paint the fire-scarred slopes a flaming red, and a host of other
color-bearers stain the cliffs with rich tints of saffron and russet and
brown.
Coming at last to the rim of the forest, you look out over the sea,
where go lumber-laden ships to all the world. Close by the beach,
dwarfed and distorted by winds of the ocean, and nourished by its fogs,
north-coast pine (_Pinus contorta_) extends its prostrate forms over the
cliffs and dunes of the shore, just as your first acquaintance, the
white-bark pine, spreads over the dunes and ridges of the mountain. They
are brothers of a noble race.
[Illustration: Western White Pine.]
You have traversed the wonder-forest of the world, and on your journey
with the stream you may have come to know twenty-three species of
cone-bearers, all indigenous to the Columbia country. Of these, one is
Douglas fir, nowise a true fir but a combination of spruce and hemlock;
seven are pines, four true firs, two spruces, two hemlocks, two
tamaracks or larches, two cedars, two junipers, and the yew.
[Illustration: A Clatsop Forest. On extreme right is a Silver Fir,
covered with moss; next are two fine Hemlocks, with Tideland Spruce on
left.]
So many large and valuable trees of so many varieties can be found
nowhere else. A Douglas fir growing within the watershed of the Columbia
is twelve feet and seven inches in diameter. A single stick 220 feet
long and 39 inches in diameter at its base has been cut for a flagpole
in Clatsop county. A spruce twenty feet in diameter has been measured.
Such immense types are rare, yet in a day's tramp through the Columbia
forests one may see many trees upwards of eight feet in diameter. One
acre in the Cowlitz river watershed is said to bear twenty-two trees,
each eight feet or more at its base. Though no exact measurements can be
cited, it is likely that upon different single acres 400,000 feet, board
measure, of standing timber may be found. And back among the Cascades,
upon one forty-acre tract, are 9,000,000 feet--enough to build a town.
Manufactured, this body of timber would be worth $135,000, of which
about $100,000 would be paid to labor.
[Illustration: A Carpet of Firs; 300,000 feet, cut on one acre in a
Columbia forest.]
Along the Columbia you will hear shrill signals of the straining engines
that haul these gigantic trees to the rafting grounds. Up and down the
broad river ply steamboats trailing huge log-rafts to the mills. Each
year the logging railroads push farther back among the mountains, to
bring forth lumber for Australia, the Orient, South America, Europe and
Africa. Many of our own states, which a few years ago boasted
"inexhaustible" forests, now draw from this supply.
[Illustration: Winter in the forest. Mount Hood seen from Government
Camp road. Twenty feet of snow.]
Since 1905 Washington has been the leading lumber-producing state of the
Union, and Oregon has advanced, in one year, from ninth to fourth place.
The 1910 production of lumber in these states was 6,182,125,000 feet, or
15.4 per cent. of the total output of the United States. The same
states, it is estimated, have 936,800,000,000 feet of standing
merchantable timber, or a third of the country's total.
[Illustration: Rangers' Pony Trail in forest of Douglas and Silver
Firs.]
This is the heritage which the centuries of forest life have bequeathed.
Only the usufruct of it is rightfully ours. Even as legal owners, we are
nevertheless but trustees of that which was here before the coming of
our race, and which should be here in great quantity when our trails
have led beyond the range. Our duty is plain. Let us uphold every effort
to give meaning and power to the civil laws which say: "Thou shalt not
burn;" to the moral laws which say: "Thou shalt not waste." Let us
understand and support that spirit of conservation which demands for
coming generations the fullest measure of the riches we enjoy. For
although the region of the Columbia is the home of the greatest trees,
centuries must pass ere the seedlings of to-day will stand matured.
[Illustration: Forest Fire on east fork of Hood River. From a photograph
taken at Cloud Cap Inn five minutes after the fire started.]
Reforestation is indispensable as insurance. Let us see to it that the
untillable hills shall ever bear these matchless forests, emerald
settings for our snow-peaks. On their future depends, in great degree,
the future of the Northwest. As protectors of the streams that nourish
our valleys, and perennial treasuries of power for our industries, they
are guarantors of life and well-being to the millions that will soon
people the vast Columbia basin.
[Illustration: Reforestation--Three generations of young growth;
Lodgepole Pine in foreground; Lodgepole and Tamarack thicket on ridge at
right; Tamarack on skyline.]
NOTES
=Transportation Routes, Hotels, Guides, etc.=--The
trip from Portland to north side of Mount Hood is made
by rail (Oregon-Washington Ry. & Nay. Co. from Union
station) or boat (The Dalles, Portland & Astoria Nav.
Co. from foot of Alder street) to Hood River, Ore. (66
miles), where automobiles are taken for Cloud Cap Inn.
Fare, to Hood River, by rail, $1.90; by boat, $1.00.
Auto fare, Hood River to the Inn, $5.00. Round trip,
Portland to Inn and return, by rail, $12.50; by boat,
$12.00. Board and room at Cloud Cap Inn, $5.00 a day,
or $30.00 a week. Accommodations may be reserved at
Travel Bureau, 69 Fifth street.
To Government Camp, south side of Mount Hood (56
miles), the trip is made by electric cars to Boring,
Oregon, and thence by automobile. Cars of the Portland
Railway, Light & Power Co., leave First and Alder
streets for Boring (fare 40 cents), where they connect
with automobiles (fare to Government Camp, $5.00).
Board and room at Coalman's Government Camp hotel,
$3.00 a day, or $18.00 a week.
Guides for the ascent of Mt. Hood, as well as for a
variety of side trips, may be engaged at Cloud Cap Inn
and Government Camp. For climbing parties, the charge
is $5.00 per member.
The trip to Mount Adams is by Spokane, Portland &
Seattle ("North Bank") Railway from North Bank station
or by boat (as above) to White Salmon, Wash.,
connecting with automobile or stage for Guler or
Glenwood. Fare to White Salmon by rail, $2.25; round
trip, $3.25; fare by boat, $1.00. White Salmon to
Guler, $3.00. Board and room at Chris. Guler's hotel
at Guler P. O., near Trout Lake, $1.50 a day, or $9.00
a week. Similar rates to and at Glenwood. At either
place, guides and horses may be engaged for the
mountain trails (15 miles to the snow-line). Bargain
in advance.
The south side of Mount St. Helens is reached by rail
from Union station, Portland, to Yacolt (fare $1.30)
or Woodland ($1.00), where conveyances may be had for
Peterson's ranch on Lewis River. To the north side,
the best route is by rail to Castle Rock (fare,
$1.90), and by vehicle thence to Spirit Lake. Regular
guides for the mountain are not to be had, but the
trails are well marked.
=Automobile Roads.=--Portland has many excellent roads
leading out of the city, along the Columbia and the
Willamette. One of the most attractive follows the
south bank of the Columbia to Rooster Rock and
Latourelle Falls (25 miles). As it is on the high
bluffs for much of the distance, it commands extended
views of the river in each direction, and of the
snow-peaks east and north of the city. Return may be
made via the Sandy River valley. This road is now
being extended eastward from Latourelle Falls to
connect with the road which is building westward from
Hood River. When completed the highway will be one of
the great scenic roads of the world.
From Portland, several roads through the near-by
villages lead to a junction with the highway to
Government Camp on the south side of Mount Hood (56
miles). The mountain portion of this is the old Barlow
Road of the "immigrant" days in early Oregon, and is
now a toll road. (Toll for vehicles, round trip,
$2.50.) Supervisor T. H. Sherrard, of the Oregon
National Forest Service, is now building a road from
the west boundary of the national forest, at the
junction of Zigzag and Sandy rivers, crossing Sandy
canyon (see p. 71), following the Clear Fork of the
Sandy to the summit of the Cascades, crossing the
range by the lowest pass in the state (elevation,
3,300 feet), and continuing down Elk Creek and West
Fork of Hood River to a junction with the road from
Lost Lake into Hood River valley. The completion of
this road through the forest reserve will open a
return route from Hood River to the Government Camp
road, through a mountain district of the greatest
interest.
Southward from Portland, inviting roads along the
Willamette lead to Oregon City, Salem, Eugene and
Albany. From Portland westward, several good roads are
available, leading along the Columbia or through
Banks, Buxton and Mist to Astoria and the beach
resorts south of that city. North of the Columbia
(ferry to Vancouver), a route of great interest leads
eastward along the Columbia to Washougal and the
canyon of Washougal River (45 miles). From Vancouver
northward a popular road follows the Columbia to
Woodland and Kalama, and thence along the Cowlitz
River to Castle Rock.
The tour book of the Portland Automobile Club, giving
details of these and many other roads, may be had for
$1.50 in paper covers, or $2.50 in leather.
=Bibliography.=--The geological story of the Cascade
uptilt and the formation of the Columbia gorge is
graphically told in _Condon: Oregon Geology_
(Portland, J. K. Gill Co., 1910). For the Columbia
from its sources to the sea, _Lyman: The Columbia
River_ (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909) not only
gives the best account of the river itself and its
great basin but tells the Indian legends and outlines
the period of discovery and settlement. _Irving:
Astoria_ and _Winthrop: The Canoe and the Saddle_ are
classics of the early Northwest. _Balch: Bridge of the
Gods_, weaves the Indian myth of a natural bridge into
a story of love and war.
The literature of the mountains described in this
volume is mainly to be found in the publications of
the mountain clubs, especially _Mazama_ (Portland),
_The Sierra Club Bulletin_ (San Francisco) and _The
Mountaineer_ (Seattle). Many of their papers have
scientific value as well as popular interest. It is to
be hoped that the Mazamas will resume the publication
of their annual.
_Russell: Glaciers of N. Am._ p. 67; _Emmons:
Volcanoes of the U. S. Pacific Coast_, in _Bulletin of
Am. Geog. Soc._, v. 9, p. 31; _Sylvester: Is Mt. Hood
Awakening?_ in _Nat'l Geog. Mag._, v. 19, p. 515,
describe the glaciers of Mt. Hood. Prof. Reid has
published valuable accounts of both Hood and Adams,
with especial reference to their glaciers, in
_Science_, n. s., v. 15, p. 906; _Bul. Geol. Soc. of
Am._, v. 13, p. 536, and _Zeitschrift fur
Gletscherkunde_, v. 1, p. 113. An account of the
volcanic activities of St. Helens by Lieut. C. P.
Elliott, U. S. A., may be found in _U. S. Geog. Mag._,
v. 8, pp. 226, and by J. S. Diller in _Science_, v. 9,
p. 639.
The ice caves of the Mt. Adams district are described
in _Balch_: _Glacieres, or Freezing Caverns_, which
covers similar phenomena in many countries; by L. H.
Wells, in _Pacific Monthly_, v. 13, p. 234; by R. W.
Raymond, in _Overland Monthly_, v. 3, p. 421; by H. T.
Finck in _Nation_, v. 57, p. 342.
Dryer's account of the first ascent of Mt. St. Helens
may be found in _The Oregonian_ of September 3, 1853,
and his story of the first ascent of Mt. Hood in _The
Oregonian_, August 19, 1854, and _Littell's Living
Age_, v. 43, p. 321.
=The Mountain Clubs.=--For the following list of
presidents and ascents of the Mazamas, I am indebted
to Miss Gertrude Metcalfe, historian of the club:
PRESIDENTS. OFFICIAL ASCENTS.
1894 Will G. Steel Mt. Hood, Oregon.
1895 Will G. Steel--L. L. Hawkins Mt. Adams, Washington.
1896 C. H. Sholes Mt. Mazama (named for the
Mazamas, 1896), Mt.
McLoughlin (Pitt), Crater
Lake, Oregon.
1897 Henry L. Pittock Mt. Rainier, Washington.
1898 Hon. M. C. George Mt. St. Helens, Washington.
1899 Will G. Steel Mt. Sahale (named by the
Mazamas, 1899), Lake
Chelan, Wash.
1900 T. Brook White Mt. Jefferson, Oregon.
1901 Mark O'Neill Mt. Hood, Oregon.
1902 Mark O'Neill Mt. Adams, Washington.
1903 R. L. Glisan Three Sisters, Oregon.
1904 C. H. Sholes Mt. Shasta, California.
1905 Judge H. H. Northup Mt. Rainier, Washington.
1906 C. H. Sholes Mt. Baker (Northeast side),
Wash.
1907 C. H. Sholes Mt. Jefferson, Oregon.
1908 C. H. Sholes Mt. St. Helens, Washington.
1909 M. W. Gorman Mt. Baker (Southwest side),
and Shuksan, Washington.
1910 John A. Lee Three Sisters, Oregon.
1911 H. H. Riddell Glacier Peak, Lake Chelan, Wash.
1912 Edmund P. Sheldon Mt. Hood, Oregon.
The organization and success of the Portland Snow Shoe
Club are mainly due to the enthusiastic labors of its
president, J. Wesley Ladd. Between 1901 and 1909, Mr.
Ladd took a private party of his friends each winter
for snow shoeing and other winter sports to Cloud Cap
Inn or Government Camp. Three years ago it was
determined to form a club and erect a house near Cloud
Cap Inn. The club was duly incorporated and a permit
obtained from the United States Forest Service. Mr.
Ladd, who has been president of the club since its
formation, writes me:
"Our club house was started in July, 1910, and was
erected by Mr. Mark Weygandt, the worthy mountain
guide who has conducted so many parties to the top of
Mt. Hood. It is built of white fir logs, all selected
there in the forest. I have been told in a letter from
the Montreal Amateur Athletic Club of Montreal,
Canada, that we have the most unique and up-to-date
Snow Shoe Club building in the world. The site for the
house was selected by Mr. Horace Mecklem and myself,
who made a special trip up there. The building was
finished in September, 1910. It is forty feet long and
twenty four feet wide, with a six-foot fireplace and a
large up-to-date cooking range. The organizers of the
club are as follows: Harry L. Corbett, Elliott R.
Corbett, David T. Honeyman, Walter B. Honeyman, Rodney
L. Glisan, Dr. Herbert S. Nichols, Horace Mecklem,
Brandt Wickersham, Jordan V. Zan, and myself."
The Portland Ski Club was organized six years ago, and
has since made a trip to Government Camp in January or
February of each year. The journey is made by vehicle
until snow is gained on the foothills, at
Rhododendron; the remaining ten miles are covered on
skis. The presidents of the club have been: 1907,
James A. Ambrose; 1908, George S. Luders; 1909, Howard
H. Haskell; 1910, E. D. Jorgensen; 1911, G. R. Knight;
1912, John C. Cahalin.
The Mountaineers, a club organized in Seattle in 1907,
made a noteworthy ascent of Mount Adams in 1911.
=Climate.=--The weather conditions in the lower
Columbia River region are a standing invitation to
outdoor life during a long and delightful summer.
Western Oregon and Washington know no extremes of heat
or cold at any time of the year. The statistics here
given are from tables of the U. S. Weather Bureau,
averaged for the period of government record:
Mean annual rainfall: Portland, 45.1 inches; The
Dalles, 19 inches. Portland averages 164 days with .01
of an inch precipitation during the year, and The
Dalles 74 days; but the long and comparatively dry
summer is indicated by the fact that only 27 of these
days at Portland and 15 at The Dalles fell in the
summer months, June to September inclusive.
Mean annual temperature varies little between the east
and west sides of the Cascades, Portland having a
57-year average of 52.8° as compared with 52.5° at The
Dalles. But the range of temperature is greater in the
interior. Thus the mean monthly temperature for
January, the coldest month, is 38.7° at Portland and
32.6° at The Dalles, while for July, the hottest
month, it is 67.3° at Portland and 72.6° at The
Dalles.
While mountain weather must always be an uncertain
quantity, that of the Northwestern snow-peaks is
comparatively steady, owing to the dry summer of the
lowlands. During July and August, the snow-storms of
the Alps are almost unknown here. After the middle of
September, however, when the rains have begun, a
visitor to the snow-line is liable to encounter
weather very like that recorded by a belated tourist
at Zermatt:
First it rained and then it blew,
And then it friz and then it snew,
And then it fogged and then it thew;
And very shortly after then
It blew and friz and snew again.
=Erratum.=--On page 72, I have been misled by Dryer's
statement into crediting the first ascent of Mount
Hood to Captain Samuel K. Barlow, the road builder.
The mountain climber was his son, William Barlow, as I
am informed by Mr. George H. Himes, of the Oregon
Historical Society.
INDEX
Figures in light face type refer to the text, those in heavier type to
illustrations.
Adams, Mt., Indian legend of its origin, 43;
routes to, 66, 67;
structure and glaciers, 89-104;
lava flows, 93-97;
tree casts, 94;
caves, 94-96;
routes to summit, 96-100;
name, 103;
height, 104;
first ascent, 104;
views of, =8=, =15=, =17=, =31=, =63=, =86-107=
Adams glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, =103=, 104, =106=
Alps, character and scenery, 60
Archer Mountain, =29=
Arrowhead Mountain, =29=, =31=
Astoria, 51, =16=, =21=
Automobile roads, 140
Avalanche glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, 107
Barlow, William, ascent of Mt. Hood, 72, 79, 142
Barlow road, 70, 142, =78=
Barrett Spur, 86, =57=, =69=, =75=
Bibliography, 141
Blue Mountains, 18, 24
"Bridge of the Gods," Indian legend, 36-43; =21=, =35=
Bryce, James, on Northwestern mountains, 60
Cabbage Rock, =47=
Cape Horn, =19=
Carbon glacier, 102
Cascade locks, =39=
Cascade Mountains, 18, 24, 25, 28, 30, 58-66
Castle Rock (Columbia River), =28=, =29=, =31=
Castle Rock, Wash., 106
Cedars, group of red, =128=
Celilo Falls (Tumwater), =52=, =54=
Chelatchie Prairie, =114=
Chinook wind, Indian legend of its origin, 46-48
Climate, 142
Cloud Cap Inn, 15, 67, 78, =57=, =58=, =60=, =66=
Coast Range, 58
Coe glacier, Mt. Hood, 78, 80, 83-86, =69=, =72=, =75=
Columbia River, John Muir's description, 15;
dawn on, 15-23;
its gorge, 30;
Indian legends of its origin, 36-43;
its discovery by Capt. Gray, 51;
struggle for its ownership, 50-52;
its settlement, 52;
views of, =7=, =9=, =14-52=, =56=, =109=
Columbia Slough, =18=, =21=
"Coming of the White Man," statue, =23=
Cooper Spur, Mt. Hood, 79, 80, 87, =57-60=
Crater Rock, 81, 87, =77=, =80=
Dalles, The, 18, 39, 96, 107, =46=, =47=, =49=
Douglas, David, 131
Douglas firs, 131, 132, =122=, =130=, =132=, =133=
Dryer, T. J., 72, 115
Eliot glacier, Mt. Hood, 15, 67, 78, 83-86, =17=, =58-67=, =73=, =92=
Forest, on lava beds, 94, 107-112, =111=
"Forests, The," chapter by Harold Douglas Langille, 123-139, =122-139=
Forsyth, C. E., leader in rescue on Mt. St. Helens, 121
Glacieres, freezing caves, 95, 96, =87=
Glenwood, Wash., 68, 96
Goldendale, Wash., 68
Government Camp, 68, 70, 140, 142, =78=, =81=
"Grant Castle," on the Columbia, =46=
Gray, Capt. Robert, 51
Guler, Wash., 68, 96, =89=, =90=
Hellroaring Canyon, 103, =95=, =96=, =97=
Hood, Mt., dawn on, 15;
Indian legend of its origin, 43;
John Muir on, 57;
routes to, 66-70;
first ascent, 72, 75;
height, 75, 76;
the Mazamas organized on summit, 75;
structure and glaciers, 75-89;
summit, 80, =6=, =55=, =70=;
crater, 81, 82, =77=;
lava bed, 89;
views of, =6=, =14=, =17=, =21=, =57-85=, =123=, =124=, =138=
Hood River, =43=, =85=
Hood River (city), Ore., 67, 140, =43=, =109=
Hood River Valley, 18, 63, 66, 67, =44=
Hudson's Bay Company, 51
Ice caves, 95, 96, =87=
Illumination Rock, 81, =77=, 79
Indians, legend of the creation, 32;
"Bridge of the Gods," 36-43;
origin of the Chinook wind, 46-48;
value of their place names, 104;
Leschi, first Indian to scale a snow-peak, 115; =21=, =23=,
=26=, =30=, =44=, =50=, =52=
Japan current, 46
Jefferson, Mt., 104, =83=
Kelley, Hall J., 103
Klickitat glacier, Mt. Adams, 97-103; =94=, =97-100=
Klickitat River, 68, =144=
Ladd glacier, Mt. Hood, 78, 80, 83-86, =69=, =75=
Langille, Harold Douglas, "The Forests," 123-139
Langille, William A., 80
Lava beds, tree casts, caves, etc., near Mt. Adams, 89-96, =86=, =87=;
near Mt. St. Helens, 107-112, =111=, =112=;
struggle of the forest to cover, 108-112, =111=
Lava glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, =101-104=
Lewis and Clark, exploration, 51
Lewis River, 106, 107, =108=
Lily, the Mt. Hood, =81=
Lone Rock, =19=, =29=
Loowit, the witch woman, 41-43
Lyle, Wash, 68, =9=, =45=
Lyman glaciers, Mt. Adams, 100, =101=
Lyman, Prof. W. D., 51, 82, 103
Mazama glacier, Mt. Adams, 97, 100, =94=, =96=
Mazama Rock, Mt. Hood, =70=
Mazamas, mountain club, organization, 75;
ascents of Mt. St. Helens, 116;
an heroic rescue, 120, 121;
presidents, 142;
ascents, 142; =80=, =82=, =93=, =117=, =124=
Memaloose Island, =42=
Mountains, importance in scenery, 59
"Mountain that was 'God,'" =105=
Mountaineers, The, 142, =103=
Multnomah Falls, =26=, =27=, =28=
Newton Clark glacier, Mt. Hood, 79, 87, =83=, =84=
Noble fir, 129, 130, =125=, =130=, =136=
North Yakima, Wash., 68
Oneonta gorge, =30=, =32=
Oregon, its geological story, 23-32;
its settlement, 50-54
Peterson's, near Mt. St. Helens, 106, 107
Plummer, Fred G., 115
Pinnacle glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, =106=, =107=
Portland, Ore., 57, 140, =7=, =22=, =61=, =113=
Portland Automobile Club, 70, 140
Portland Ski Club, 142, =81=
Portland Snow-shoe Club, 142, =57=, =62=, =66=
"Presidents' Range," 104
Puget Sound, 27
Rainier, Mt. or Mt. Tacoma, and Rainier National Park, 83, 102,
=51=, =105=, =113=, =117=
Red Butte, Mt. Adams, =86=
Reforestation, =139=
Reid, Prof. Harry Fielding, 87, 103, =79=
Rhododendrons, 134, =127=
Ridge of Wonders, Mt. Adams, 103, =96=, =98=, =99=
Riley, Frank B., 120, 121
Rocky Mountains, 23
Rooster Rock, =25=
Rusk, C. E., 103
Rusk glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, 102, =98=, =101=
Ruskin, John, quoted, 59, 60, 123
"Sacajawea," statue, =23=
Sacramento Valley, origin, 26
Salmon fishing, =16=, =25=, =33=, =36=, =48=
Sandy glaciers and canyon, Mt. Hood, 86, 87, =71=, =76=
Sandy, Ore., =51=
San Joaquin Valley, origin, 21
Shaw, Col. B. F., 104
Siskiyou Mountains, 24
South Butte, Mt. Adams, 96, =89=
Speelyei, the coyote god, 32, 47
Spirit Lake, 106, =4=
Squaw grass, 134, =135=
Steel's Cliff, 81, =91=
St. Helens, Mt., Indian legend of its origin, 43;
compared with Mt. Adams, 90, 94;
discovery and name, 104;
structure, 104-6;
height, 106;
routes to, 106;
recent eruptions, 106, 107;
lava beds, 107-112;
glaciers, 112-115;
routes to summit, 112-116;
volcanic phenomena, 115;
first ascent, 115;
the Mazamas on, 116, 120, 121;
an heroic rescue, 120, 121;
views of, =4=, =8=, =15=, =17=, =108-121=
St. Peter's Dome, =20=, =31=
Sylvester, A. H., 86, 87
Table Mountain, =31=, =35=, =36=
Toutle River canyons, Mt. St. Helens, 115, =116=
Tree casts, 94, 107, =111=
Trout Lake, 15, 62, 66, 76, =89=, =110=
Umatilla, Ore., 62
Umatilla Indian village, =50=
Vancouver, Capt. George, 72, 104
Vancouver, Wash., 106, =15=, =24=
Volcanoes, 27, 28
White River glacier, Mt. Hood, 81, =75=, =77=, =82=
White Salmon, Wash., 67, 140, =42=, =44=
White Salmon glacier, Mt. Adams, 100, =107=
White Salmon River, =41=
White Salmon Valley, 56, 89
Willamette River, 21, 57, =9=, =113=
Wind Mountain, =39=, =40=
Woodland, Wash., 106, 140
Yacolt, Wash., 106, 140
Yakima Indians, 48, =21=
Y. M. C. A., party on Mt. Hood, =76=;
on Mt. Adams, =86=
Yocum, O. C., 70
Zigzag glacier, Mt. Hood, 81, 87, =77=, =79=
Zigzag River and Canyon, 86, 87, =48=, =78=
[Illustration: Klickitat River Canyon, near Mount Adams.]
ENGRAVINGS BY THE HICKS-CHATTEN CO.
COLOR PRINTING BY THE KILHAM STATIONERY AND PRINTING CO.
PORTLAND, OREGON
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Obvious punctuation errors were corrected.
Page 10, "Moorhouse" changed to "Moorehouse" (Lee Moorehouse 26)
Page 51, "monoply" changed to "monopoly" (a foreign monopoly that)
Page 54, "descendents" changed to "descendants" (pride of their
descendants)
Page 60, illustration with caption beginning "Cone of Mount Hood",
"scoriae" changed to "scoriæ" (ridge of volcanic scoriæ)
Page 78, "pretentions" changed to "pretensions" (with very modest
pretensions)
Page 81, "scoriae" changed to "scoriæ" (rocks and the scoriæ which)
Page 83, "tripple" changed to "triple" (and even triple border)
Page 97, double word "to" removed from test. Original read (stairway
tilted to to forty)
Page 141, italics added to "U. S. Geog. Mag." and "Science" to follow
rest of usage (in _U. S. Geog. Mag._, v. 8, pp. 226, and by J. S. Diller
in _Science_)
Page 142, Erratum, "Captin" changed to "Captain" (to Captain Samuel K.
Barlow)
Page 143, Indians, Leschi, only the first illustration is of Leschi, the
rest of the bolded page numbers are of other people.
Page 143, Zigzag River and Canyon, bold text added to "48" as it is an
illustration (Canyon, 86, 87, =48=, =78=)
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