usage, giving the names applied by the earliest explorers and since
used with little variation in the Northwest. There has been some
confusion, however, chiefly owing to a recent government map. For
instance, in that publication, White glacier, properly so called
because it is the main feeder of the White river, was named Emmons
glacier, after S. F. Emmons, a geologist who was one of the first to
visit it. It is interesting to note that in his reports Mr. Emmons
himself called this the White River glacier. On the other hand, the
map mentioned, after displacing the name White from the larger glacier
to which it logically belongs, gave it to the ice-stream feeding
another branch of the White river, namely, the glacier always locally
called the Winthrop, and so called by Prof. Russell in his report to
the Geological Survey in 1897.
[Illustration: Copyright, 1910, By S. C. Smith. Climbing Goat Peaks,
in the Cascades, with the Mountain twenty miles away.]
[Illustration {p.095}: Looking up White Glacier (right), from a point
on its lower end, showing vast amount of morainal debris carried down
by this glacier. Little Tahoma in middle distance; Gibraltar and
Cathedral Rocks on extreme right; "Goat Island" on left. Elevation of
camera, about 4,500 feet. Note the "cloud banner" which the crag has
flung to the breeze.]
{p.096}
[Illustration: The Mountain seen from the top of Cascade
range, with party starting west over the forest trails for Paradise.]
[Illustration: Great moraine built by Frying-Pan Glacier on side of
"Goat Island."]
Similarly, North and South Mowich, names of the streams to which they
give birth, were miscalled Willis and Edmunds glaciers, after Bailey
Willis, geologist, and George F. Edmunds, late United States senator,
who visited the Mountain many years ago. The Mowich rivers were so
named by the Indians from the fact that, in the great rocks on the
northwest side of the peak, just below the summit, they saw the figure
of the mowich, or deer. The deer of rock is there still--he may be
seen in several pictures in this volume,--and so long as he keeps to
his icy pasture it will be difficult to displace his name from the
glaciers and rivers below. The southern branch of the great Tahoma
glacier, locally called South Tahoma glacier, this map renamed Wilson
glacier, for A. D. Wilson, Emmons's companion in exploration. Finally,
the name of General Hazard Stevens, who, {p.097} with Mr. Van Trump,
made the first ascent of the peak in 1870, was misplaced, being given
to the west branch of the Nisqually, whereas the general usage has
fixed the name of that pioneer upon the well-defined interglacier east
of the Paradise, and above Stevens canyon, which in its prime it
carved on the side of the Mountain. General Stevens himself writes me
from Boston that this is the correct usage.
[Illustration: Coming around Frying-Pan Glacier, below Little Tahoma.]
Such errors in an official document are the more inexcusable because
their author ignored local names recognized in the earlier
publications of the government and its agents. In such matters, too,
the safe principle is to follow local custom where that is logical and
established. The new map prepared by Mr. Ricksecker, and printed
herewith, returns to the older and better usage. Unless good reason
can be shown for departing from it, his careful compilation should be
followed. Willis Wall, above Carbon Glacier, appropriately recalls the
work of Bailey Willis. The explorations of Emmons and Wilson may well
be commemorated by landmarks as yet unnamed, not by displacing fit
names long current.
In connection with his survey of the Park, Mr. Matthes has been
authorized to collect local testimony as to established names within
that area, and to invite suggestions as to appropriate names for
landmarks not yet definitely named. His report will doubtless go to
the National Geographic Board for final decision on the names
recommended. Thus, in time, we may hope to see this awkward and
confusing tangle in mountain nomenclature straightened out.
[Illustration: Sunrise above the clouds, seen from Camp Curtis, on the
Wedge, (altitude 9,500 feet); White Glacier below. This camp was named
by the Mountaineers in 1909, in honor of Asahel Curtis, the Seattle
climber.]
{p.098}
[Illustration: Looking up from "Snipe Lake," a small pond below
Interglacier, to the head of Winthrop Glacier and Liberty Cap.]
The written history of the Mountain begins with its discovery by
Captain George Vancouver. Its first appearance upon a map occurs in
Vancouver's well-known report, published in 1798, after his death:
"Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and around the World,
1790-1795."
It was in the summer of 1792, shortly after Vancouver had entered the
Sound, he tells us, that he first saw "a very remarkable high round
mountain, covered with snow, apparently at the southern extremity of
the distant snowy range." A few days later he again mentions "the
round snowy mountain," "which, after my friend Rear-Admiral Rainier, I
distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier." Nearly all of Captain
Vancouver's friends were thus distinguished, at the cost of the Indian
names, to which doubtless he gave no thought. Sonorous "Kulshan" and
unique "Whulge" were lost, in order that we might celebrate "Mr.
Baker" and "Mr. Puget," junior officers of Vancouver's expedition.
[Illustration: Passing a big crevasse on Interglacier. Sour-Dough
Mountains on the right, with Grand Park beyond: St. Elmo Pass in
center, Snipe Lake and Glacier Basin in depression.]
[Illustration {p.099}: View north from Mt. Ruth (part of the Wedge), with
Interglacier in foreground, the Snipe Lake country below, Sour-Dough
Mountains on right, Grand Park in middle distance, and Mt. Baker, with
the summits of the Selkirks, far away in Canada, on the horizon.]
{p.100}
[Illustration: Camp on St. Elmo Pass, north side of the Wedge, between
Winthrop Glacier and Interglacier. Elevation, 9,000 feet. Winthrop
Glacier and the fork of White River which it feeds are seen in
distance below. The man is Maj. E. S. Ingraham, a veteran explorer of
the Mountain, after whom Ingraham Glacier is named.]
[Illustration: East face of the Mountain, from south side of the
Wedge, showing route to the summit over White Glacier.]
Happily, the fine Indian name "Tacoma" was not offered up a sacrifice
to such obscurity. Forgotten as he is now, Peter Rainier was, in his
time, something of a figure. After some ransacking of libraries, I
have found a page that gives us a glimpse of a certain hard-fought
though unequal combat, in the year 1778, between an American privateer
and two British ships. It is of interest in connection with "Mount
Rainier," the name recognized by the Geographic Board at Washington in
1889 as official.
On the 8th of July, the 14-gun ship Ostrich, Commander Peter
Rainier, on the Jamaica station, in company with the 10-gun armed
brig Lowestoffe's Prize, chased a large brig. After a long run,
the Ostrich brought the brig, which was the American privateer
Polly, to action, and, after an engagement of three hours'
duration (by which time the Lowestoffe's Prize had arrived up and
{p.101} taken part in the contest), compelled her to surrender.
* * * * Captain Rainier was wounded by a musket ball through the
left breast; he could not, however, be prevailed upon to go
below, but remained on deck till the close of the action. He was
posted, and appointed to command the 64-gun ship Burford.
(_Allen: "Battles of the British Navy,"_ Vol. I., London, 1872).
[Illustration: Admiral Peter Rainier, of the British Navy, in whose
honor Captain George Vancouver, in 1792, named the great peak "Mt.
Rainier."]
Before quitting with Vancouver and eighteenth-century history of the
Mountain, I note that our peak enjoyed a further honor. Captain
Vancouver records an interesting event that took place on the
anniversary of King George's birth;--"on which auspicious day," he
says, "I had long since designed to take formal possession of all the
countries we had lately been employed in exploring, in the name of,
and for, His Britannic Majesty, his heirs and successors." And he did!
[Illustration: First picture of the Mountain, from Vancouver's "Voyage
of Discovery," London, 1798.]
After Vancouver's brief mention, and the caricature of our peak
printed in his work, literature is practically silent about the
Mountain for more than sixty years. Those years witnessed the failure
of England's memorable struggle to make good Vancouver's "annexation."
Oregon was at last a state. Out of its original area Washington
Territory had just been carved. In that year of 1853 {p.102} came
Theodore Winthrop, of the old New England family, who was destined to
a lasting and pathetic fame as an author of delightful books and a
victim of the first battle of the Civil War. Sailing into what is now
the harbor of the city of Tacoma, he there beheld the peak. We feel
his enthusiasm as he tells of the appeal it made to him.
[Illustration: Climbers on St. Elmo Pass, seen from the upper side.]
[Illustration: St. Elmo Pass from north side. The name was given by
Maj. Ingraham in 1886 because of a remarkable exhibition of St. Elmo's
fire seen here during a great storm. A cabin is needed at this
important crossing.]
[Illustration: Avalanche Camp (11,000 feet), on the high, ragged chine
between Carbon and Winthrop. Carbon Glacier, seen below, has cut
through a great range, leaving Mother Mountains on the left and the
Sluiskins, right.]
We had rounded a point, and opened Puyallop Bay, a breadth of
sheltered calmness, when I was suddenly aware of a vast white
shadow in the water. What cloud, piled massive on the horizon,
could cast an image so sharp in outline, so full of vigorous
detail of surface? No cloud, but a cloud compeller. It was a
giant mountain dome of snow, swelling and seeming to fill the
aerial spheres, as its image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil
water. Only its splendid snows were visible, high in the
unearthly regions of clear blue noonday sky.
Kingly and alone stood this majesty, without any visible consort,
though far to the north and the south its brethren and sisters
dominated their realms. Of all the peaks from California to
{p.103} Frazer's River, this one before me was royalest. Mount
Regnier[5] Christians have dubbed it, in stupid nomenclature
perpetuating the name of somebody or nobody. More melodiously the
Siwashes call it Tacoma,--a generic term also applied to all snow
peaks. Tacoma, under its ermine, is a crushed volcanic dome, or
an ancient volcano fallen in, and perhaps not yet wholly
lifeless. The domes of snow are stateliest. There may be more of
feminine beauty in the cones, and more of masculine force and
hardihood in the rough pyramids, but the great domes are calmer
and more divine.
[Footnote 5: Winthrop's error was a common one at that
time and has remained current till to-day. The admiral's
grandfather, the Huguenot exile, was "Regnier," but his
descendants anglicized the patronymic into "Rainier."]
No foot of man had ever trampled those pure snows. It was a
virginal mountain, distant from human inquisitiveness as a marble
goddess is from human loves. Yet there was nothing unsympathetic
in its isolation, or despotic in its distant majesty. Only the
thought of eternal peace arose from this heaven-upbearing
monument like incense, and, overflowing, filled the world with
deep and holy calm.
Our lives demand visual images that can be symbols to us of the
grandeur or the sweetness of repose. The noble works of nature,
and mountains most of all,
"have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal silence."
And, studying the light and the majesty of Tacoma, there passed
from it and entered into my being a thought and image of solemn
beauty, which I could thenceforth evoke whenever in the world I
must {p.104} have peace or die. For such emotion years of
pilgrimage were worthily spent. ("_The Canoe and the Saddle_,"
published posthumously in 1862).
[Illustration: Russell Peak, from Avalanche Camp, 2,500 feet below.
Named for Prof. Israel C. Russell, geologist.]
[Illustration: Looking up Winthrop Glacier from Avalanche Camp.]
[Illustration: Looking across Winthrop Glacier from Avalanche Camp to
Steamboat Prow (the Wedge) and St. Elmo Pass. Elevation of camera,
11,000 feet.]
In the controversy over the Mountain's name, some persons have been
misled into imaging Winthrop a fabricator of pseudo-Indian
nomenclature. But his work bears scrutiny. He wrote before there was
any dispute as to the name, or any rivalry between towns to confound
partisanship with scholarship. He was in the Territory while Captain
George B. McClellan, was surveying the Cascades to find a pass for a
railroad. He was in close touch with McClellan's party, and doubtless
knew well its able ethnologist, George Gibbs, the Harvard man whose
works on the Indian languages of the Northwest are the foundation of
all later books in that field. Although he first learned it from the
Indians, in all likelihood he discussed the name "Tacoma" with Gibbs,
who was already collecting material for his writings, published in the
{p.107} report of the Survey and in the "Contributions" of the
Smithsonian Institution. Among these are the vocabularies of a score
of Indian dialects, which must be mentioned here because they are
conclusive as to the form, meaning and application of the name.
[Illustration {p.105}: View south from the Sluiskin Mountains across
Moraine Park to the head of Carbon Glacier. Elevation of camera, 6,500
feet. Moraine Park, below, was until recently the bed of an
interglacier. On the extreme left, Avalanche Camp and Russell Peak are
seen between Carbon and Winthrop Glaciers.]
[Illustration {p.106}: Portion of Spray Park, with north-side view of
the Mountain, showing Observation Rock and timber line. Elevation of
camera, 7,000 feet.]
[Illustration: Climbing the séracs of Winthrop Glacier.]
In his vocabulary of the Winatsha (Wenatchee) language, Gibbs entered:
"T'koma, snow peak." In that of the Niswalli (Nisqually), he noted:
"Takob, the name of Mt. Rainier." "T'kope," Chinook for white, is
evidently closely allied. Gibbs himself tells us that the Northwestern
dialects treated b and m as convertible. "Takob" is equivalent to
"Takom" or "T'koma." Far, then, from coining the word, Winthrop did
not even change its Indian form, as some have supposed, by modifying
the mouth-filling "Tahoma" of the Yakimas into the simpler, stronger
and more musical "Tacoma." This is as pure Indian as the other, and
Winthrop's popularization of the word was a public service, as
perpetuating one of the most significant of our Indian place-names.
I have said thus much, not to revive a musty and, to me, very amusing
quarrel, but because correspondents in different parts of the country
have asked regarding facts that are naturally part of the history of
the Mountain. Some would even have me stir the embers of that ancient
controversy. For instance, here is the _Bulletin of the Geographical
Society of Philadelphia_ taking me to task:
This book would also do a great service if it would help
popularize the name "Tacoma" in spite of the Mountain's official
designation "Rainier"--a name to which it has no right when its
old Indian name is at once so beautiful and appropriate. It is to
be regretted that a more vigorous protest has not been made
against the modern name, and also against such propositions as
that of changing "Narada Falls" to "Cushman Falls."
[Illustration: Ice pinnacles on the Carbon.]
The mistaken attempt to displace the name of Narada Falls was
still-born from the start, and needed no help to kill it. There are
many unnamed landmarks {p.108} in the National Park ready to
commemorate Mr. Cushman's ambition to make the Mountain a real
possession of all the people. As to the other matter--the name of the
peak itself,--that may safely be left to the American sense of humor.
But what I have said is due in justice to Winthrop, one of the finest
figures in our literary history. His work in making the peak known
demands that his name, given by local gratitude to one of its
important glaciers, shall not be removed.
[Illustration: Among the ice bridges of the Carbon.]
A word about the industrial value of the Mountain may not be without
interest in this day of electricity. Within a radius of sixty miles of
the head of Puget Sound, more water descends from high levels to the
sea than in any other similar area in the United States. A great part
of this is collected on the largest peak. Hydraulic engineers have
estimated, on investigation, an average annual precipitation, for the
summit and upper slopes, of at least 180 inches, or four times the
rainfall in Tacoma or Seattle. The melting snows feed the White,
Puyallup and Nisqually rivers, large streams flowing into the Sound,
and the Cowlitz, an important tributary of the Columbia. The minimum
flow of these streams is computed at more than 1200 second feet, while
their average flow is nearly twice that total.
The utilization of this large water supply on the steep mountain
slopes began in 1904 with the erection of the Electron plant of the
Puget Sound Power Company. For this the water is diverted from the
Puyallup river ten miles from the end of its glacier, and 1750 feet
above sea level, and carried ten miles more in an open flume to a
reservoir, from which four steel penstocks, each four feet in
diameter, drop it to the power house 900 feet below. The plant
generates 28,000 horse power, which is conveyed to Tacoma, twenty-five
miles distant, at a pressure of 60,000 volts, and there is distributed
for the operation of street railways, lights and factories in that
city and Seattle.
[Illustration {p.109}: Mountain Climbers in Crevasse on Carbon
Glacier.]
A more important development is in progress on the larger White river
near Buckley, where the Pacific Coast Power Company is diverting the
water by a dam and eight-mile canal to Lake Tapps, elevation 540 feet
above tide. From this {p.111} great reservoir it will be taken
through a tunnel and pipe line to the generating plant at Dieringer,
elevation 65 feet. The 100,000 horse power ultimately to be produced
here will be carried fifteen miles to Tacoma, for sale to
manufacturers in the Puget Sound cities.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Building Tacoma's Electric Power Plant on the Nisqually
Canyon. Upper view shows site of retention dam, above tunnel; middle
view, end of tunnel, where pipeline crosses the canyon on a bridge;
lower view, site of the generating plant (see p. 21).]
[Illustration]
Both these plants are enterprises of Stone & Webster, of Boston. A
competitive plant is now nearing completion by the city of Tacoma,
utilizing the third of the rivers emptying into the Sound. The
Nisqually is dammed above its famous canyon, at an elevation of 970
feet, where its minimum flow is 300 second feet. The water will be
carried through a 10,000-foot tunnel and over a bridge to a reservoir
at La Grande, from which the penstocks will carry it down the side of
the canyon {p.112} to the 40,000 horse-power generating plant built
on a narrow shelf a few feet above the river. The city expects to be
able to produce power for its own use, with a considerable margin for
sale, at a cost at least as low as can be attained anywhere in the
United States.
[Illustration: Hydro-electric plant at Electron, on the Puyallup
River, producing 28,000 h. p.]
The rocks of which the Mountain is composed are mainly andesites of
different classes and basalt. But the peak rests upon a platform of
granite, into which the glaciers have cut in their progress. Fine
exposures of the older and harder rock are seen on the Nisqually, just
below the present end of its glacier, as well as on the Carbon and in
Moraine Park. This accounts for the fact that the river beds are full
of granite bowlders, which are grinding the softer volcanic shingle
into soil. Thus the glaciers are not only fast deforming the peak.
They are "sowing the seeds of continents to be."
[Illustration: Cutting canal to divert White River into Lake Tapps.]
{p.113}
[Illustration: Mystic Lake in Moraine Park.]
IV.
THE CLIMBERS.
Climb the mountains, and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.--_John Muir._
Upwards--towards the peaks, towards the stars, and towards the
great silence!--_Ibsen._
Given good muscles and wind, the other requisites for an ascent of the
Mountain are a competent guide and grit. It offers few problems like
those confronting the climber of the older and more crag-like Alps.
There are no perpendicular cliffs to scale, no abysses to swing across
on a rope. If you can stand the punishment of a long up-hill pull,
over loose volcanic talus and the rough ice, you may safely join a
party for Gibraltar Rock and the summit. But the ascent should not be
attempted without first spending some time in "try-outs" on lower
elevations, both to prepare one's muscles for climbing and descending
steep slopes, and to accustom one's lungs to the rarer atmosphere of
high altitudes. Such preparation will save much discomfort, including,
perhaps, a visit of "mountain sickness."
[Illustration: Glacier Table on Winthrop Glacier. This phenomenon is
due to the melting of the glacier, save where sheltered by the rock.
Under the sun's rays, these "tables" incline more and more to the
south, until they slide off their pedestals.]
Another warning must be given to the general tourist. Do not try to
climb the Mountain without guides. The seasoned alpinist, of course,
will trust to previous experience on other peaks, and may find his
climb here comparatively safe and easy. But the fate of {p.115} T.
Y. Callaghan and Joseph W. Stevens, of Trenton, N. J., who perished on
the glaciers in August, 1909, should serve as a warning against
over-confidence. Unless one has intimate acquaintance with the ways of
the great ice peaks, he should never attack such a wilderness of
crevasses and shifting snow-slopes save in company of those who know
its fickle trails.
[Illustration {p.114}: Carbon River below its Gorge, and Mother
Mountains. This range was so named because of a rude resemblance to
the up-turned face of a woman seen here in the sky-line, while the
view of snowy Liberty Cap beyond and the milky whiteness of the stream
gave rise to the pleasing fiction that the Indian name of the peak
meant "nourishing breast." "Tacoma" meant simply the Snow Mountain.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1910, By C. E. Cutter. Oldest and youngest
climbers, Gen. Hazard Stevens and Jesse McRae. General Stevens, with
P. B. Van Trump, in 1870, made the first ascent. In 1905, he came west
from Boston and joined the Mazamas in their climb. The picture shows
him before his tent in Paradise Park. He was then 63 years old.]
Under the experienced guides, many climbers reach Crater Peak each
summer, and no accidents of a serious nature have occurred. The
successful climbers numbered one hundred and fifty-nine in 1910. Many
more go only as far as Gibraltar, or even to McClure Rock (Elevation,
7,385 feet), and are well rewarded by the magnificent views which
these points command of the south-side glaciers and arêtes, with the
ranges lying below. The name "McClure Rock" is a memorial of the
saddest tragedy of the Mountain. Over the slope below this landmark
Prof. Edgar McClure of the University of Oregon fell to his death on
the night of July 27, 1897. He had spent the day in severe scientific
labor on the summit, and was hurrying down in the moonlight, much
wearied, to Reese's Camp for the night. Going ahead of his companions,
to find a safe path for them, he called back that the ice was too
steep. Then there was silence. Either he slipped in trying to
re-ascend the slope, or he fainted from exhaustion. His body was found
on the rocks below by his comrades of the Mazama Club.