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.]