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.]