presumably on the same day. Eighteen days later, having followed "the
inlet," meaning Puget Sound, to his point of nearest approach to the
mountain, Vancouver wrote:
"We found the inlet to terminate here in an extensive circular compact
bay whose waters washed the base of mount Rainier, though its elevated
summit was yet at a very considerable distance from the shore, with
which it was connected by several ridges of hills rising towards it with
gradual ascent and much regularity. The forest trees and the several
shades of verdure that covered the hills gradually decreased in point of
beauty until they became invisible; when the perpetual clothing of snow
commenced which seemed to form a horizontal line from north to south
along this range of rugged mountains, from whose summit mount Rainier
rose conspicuously, and seemed as much elevated above them as they were
above the level of the sea; the whole producing a most grand,
picturesque effect."
Vancouver made no attempt to reach the mountain. Dreamer of great dreams
though he was, how like a madhouse nightmare would have seemed to him a
true prophecy of mighty engines whose like no human mind had then
conceived, running upon roads of steel and asphalt at speeds which no
human mind had then imagined, whirling thousands upon thousands of
pleasure-seekers from the shores of that very inlet to the glistening
mountain's flowered sides!
Just one century after the discovery, the Geological Society of America
started the movement to make Mount Rainier a national park. Within a
year the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
National Geographic Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the
Sierra Club joined in the memorialization of Congress. Six years later,
in 1899, the park was created.
II
The principal entrance to the park is up the Nisqually River at the
south. Here entered the pioneer, James Longmire, many years ago, and the
roads established by him and his fellows determined the direction of the
first national-park development. Longmire Springs, for many years the
nearest resort to the great mountain, lies just within the southern
boundary. Beyond it the road follows the Nisqually and Paradise valleys,
under glorious groves of pine, cedar, and hemlock, along ravines of
striking beauty, past waterfalls and the snout of the Nisqually Glacier,
finally to inimitable Paradise Park, its inn, its hotel camp, and its
public camping-grounds. Other centres of wilderness life have been since
established, and the marvellous north side of the park will be opened by
the construction of a northwesterly highway up the valley of the Carbon
River; already a fine trail entirely around the mountain connects these
various points of development.
But the southern entrance and Paradise Park will remain for many years
the principal centre of exploration and pleasuring. Here begins the
popular trail to the summit. Here begin the trails to many of the
finest viewpoints, the best-known falls, the most accessible of the many
exquisite interglacier gardens. Here the Nisqually Glacier is reached in
a few minutes' walk at a point particularly adapted for ice-climbing,
and the comfortable viewing of ice-falls, crevasses, caves, and other
glacier phenomena grandly exhibited in fullest beauty. It is a spot
which can have in the nature of things few equals elsewhere in scenic
variety and grandeur. On one side is the vast glistening mountain; on
the other side the high serrated Tatoosh Range spattered with perpetual
snow; in middle distance, details of long winding glaciers seamed with
crevasses; in the foreground gorgeous rolling meadows of wild flowers
dotted and bordered with equally luxuriant and richly varied forest
groves; from close-by elevations, a gorgeous tumbled wilderness of
hills, canyons, rivers, lakes, and falls backgrounded by the Cascades
and accented by distant snowy peaks; the whole pervaded by the
ever-present mountain, always the same yet grandly different, from
different points of view, in the detail of its glaciered sides.
The variety of pleasuring is similarly very large. One can ride
horseback round the mountain in a leisurely week, or spend a month or
more exploring the greater wilderness of the park. One can tramp the
trails on long trips, camping by the way, or vary a vacation with
numerous short tramps. Or one can loaf away the days in dreamy content,
with now and then a walk, and now and then a ride. Or one can explore
glaciers and climb minor mountains; the Tatoosh Range alone will furnish
the stiffest as well as the most delightful climbing, with wonderful
rewards upon the jagged summits; while short climbs to points upon
near-by snow-fields will afford coasting without sleds, an exciting
sport, especially appreciated when one is young. In July, before the
valley snows melt away, there is tobogganing and skiing within a short
walk of the Inn.
The leisurely tour afoot around the mountain, with pack-train following
the trail, is an experience never to be forgotten. One passes the snouts
of a score of glaciers, each producing its river, and sees the mountain
from every angle, besides having a continuous panorama of the
surrounding country, including Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount
Baker, Tacoma, Seattle, Mount Olympus, the Pacific Ocean, and the
Cascades from the Columbia to the international line. Shorter excursions
to other beautiful park-lands offer a wide variety of pleasure. Indian
Henry's Hunting Ground, Van Trump Park, Summerland, and others provide
charm and beauty as well as fascinating changes in the aspect of the
great mountain.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by A.H. Barnes_
MOUNT ST. HELENS SEEN FROM MOUNT RAINIER PARK]
[Illustration: _From a photograph by A.H. Barnes_
MOUNT ADAMS SEEN FROM MOUNT RAINIER PARK]
Of course the ascent of the mountain is the ultimate objective of the
climber, but few, comparatively, will attempt it. It is a feat in
endurance which not many are physically fit to undertake, while to the
unfit there are no rewards. There is comparatively little rock-climbing,
but what there is will try wind and muscle. Most of the way is tramping
up long snow-covered and ice-covered slopes, with little rest from the
start at midnight to the return, if all goes well, before the following
sundown. Face and hands are painted to protect against sunburn, and
colored glasses avert snow-blindness. Success is so largely a matter of
physical condition that many ambitious tourists are advised to practise
awhile on the Tatoosh Range before attempting the trip.
"Do you see Pinnacle Peak up there?" they ask you. "If you can make that
you can make Rainier. Better try it first."
And many who try Pinnacle Peak do not make it.
As with every very lofty mountain the view from the summit depends upon
the conditions of the moment. Often Rainier's summit is lost in mists
and clouds, and there is no view. Very often on the clearest day clouds
continually gather and dissipate; one is lucky in the particular time he
is on top. Frequently there are partial views. Occasionally every
condition favors, and then indeed the reward is great. S.F. Emmons, who
made the second ascent, and after whom one of Rainier's greatest
glaciers was named, stood on the summit upon one of those fortunate
moments. The entire mountain in all its inspiring detail lay at his
feet, a wonder spectacle of first magnitude.
"Looking to the more distant country," he wrote, "the whole stretch of
Puget Sound, seeming like a pretty little lake embowered in green, could
be seen in the northwest, beyond which the Olympic Mountains extend out
into the Pacific Ocean. The Cascade Mountains, lying dwarfed at our
feet, could be traced northward into British Columbia and southward into
Oregon, while above them, at comparatively regular intervals, rose the
ghostlike forms of our companion volcanoes. To the eastward the eye
ranged over hundreds of miles, over chain on chain of mountain ridges
which gradually disappeared in the dim blue distance."
Notwithstanding the rigors of the ascent parties leave Paradise Inn for
the summit every suitable day. Hundreds make the ascent each summer. To
the experienced mountain-climber it presents no special difficulties. To
the inexperienced it is an extraordinary adventure. Certainly no one
knows his Mount Rainier who has not measured its gigantic proportions in
units of his own endurance.
The first successful ascent was made by General Hazard Stevens and P.B.
Van Trump, both residents of Washington, on August 17, 1870. Starting
from James Longmire's with Mr. Longmire himself as guide up the
Nisqually Valley, they spent several days in finding the Indian
Sluiskin, who should take them to the summit. With him, then, assuming
Longmire's place, Stevens and Van Trump started on their great
adventure. It proved more of an adventure than they anticipated, for not
far below the picturesque falls which they named after Sluiskin, the
Indian stopped and begged them to go no farther. From that compilation
of scholarly worth, by Professor Edmond S. Meany, President of the
Mountaineers, entitled "Mount Rainier, a Record of Exploration," I
quote General Stevens's translation of Sluiskin's protest:
"Listen to me, my good friends," said Sluiskin, "I must talk with you."
"Your plan to climb Takhoma is all foolishness. No one can do it and
live. A mighty chief dwells upon the summit in a lake of fire. He brooks
no intruders.
"Many years ago my grandfather, the greatest and bravest chief of all
the Yakima, climbed nearly to the summit. There he caught sight of the
fiery lake and the infernal demon coming to destroy him, and fled down
the mountain, glad to escape with his life. Where he failed, no other
Indian ever dared make the attempt.
"At first the way is easy, the task seems light. The broad snow-fields
over which I have often hunted the mountain-goat offer an inviting path.
But above them you will have to climb over steep rocks overhanging deep
gorges, where a misstep would hurl you far down--down to certain death.
You must creep over steep snow-banks and cross deep crevasses where a
mountain-goat would hardly keep his footing. You must climb along steep
cliffs where rocks are continually falling to crush you or knock you off
into the bottomless depths.
"And if you should escape these perils and reach the great snowy dome,
then a bitterly cold and furious tempest will sweep you off into space
like a withered leaf. But if by some miracle you should survive all
these perils, the mighty demon of Takhoma will surely kill you and throw
you into the fiery lake.
"Don't you go. You make my heart sick when you talk of climbing Takhoma.
You will perish if you try to climb Takhoma. You will perish and your
people will blame me.
"Don't go! Don't go! If you go I will wait here two days and then go to
Olympia and tell your people that you perished on Takhoma. Give me a
paper to them to let them know that I am not to blame for your death. My
talk is ended."
Except for the demon and his lake of fire, Sluiskin's portent of
hardship proved to be a literal, even a modest, prophecy. At five
o'clock in the evening, after eleven hours of struggle with precipices
and glaciers, exhausted, chilled, and without food, they faced a night
of zero gales upon the summit. The discovery of comforting steam-jets in
a neighboring crater, the reality perhaps of Sluiskin's lake of fire,
made the night livable, though one of suffering. It was afternoon of the
following day before they reached camp and found an astonished Sluiskin,
then, in fact, on the point of leaving to report their unfortunate
destruction.
Stevens and Van Trump were doubly pioneers, for their way up the
mountain is, in general direction at least, the popular way to-day,
greatly bettered since, however, by the short cuts and easier detours
which have followed upon experience.
III
Our four volcanic national parks exemplify four states of volcanic
history. Lassen Peak is semi-active; Mount Rainier is dormant;
Yellowstone is dead, and Crater Lake marks the spot through which a
volcano collapsed and disappeared. Rainier's usefulness as a volcanic
example, however, is lost in its supreme usefulness as a glacial
exhibit. The student of glaciers who begins here with the glacier in
action, and then studies the effects of glaciers upon igneous rocks
among the cirques of the Sierra, and upon sedimentary rocks in the
Glacier National Park, will study the masters; which, by the way, is a
tip for universities contemplating summer field-classes.
Upon the truncated top of Mount Rainier, nearly three miles in diameter,
rise two small cinder cones which form, at the junction of their
craters, the mountain's rounded snow-covered summit. It is known as
Columbia Crest. As this only rises four hundred feet above the older
containing crater, it is not always identified from below as the highest
point. Two commanding rocky elevations of the old rim, Point Success on
its southwest side, 14,150 feet, and Liberty Cap on its northwest side,
14,112 feet, appear to be, from the mountain's foot, its points of
greatest altitude.
Rainier's top, though covered with snow and ice, except in spots bared
by internal heat, is not the source of its glaciers, although its
extensive ice-fields flow into and feed several of them. The glaciers
themselves, even those continuous with the summit ice, really originate
about four thousand feet below the top in cirques or pockets which are
principally fed with the tremendous snows of winter, and the wind
sweepings and avalanches from the summit. The Pacific winds are charged
heavily with moisture which descends upon Rainier in snows of great
depth. Even Paradise Park is snowed under from twelve to thirty feet.
There is a photograph of a ranger cabin in February which shows only a
slight snow-mound with a hole in its top which locates the hidden
chimney. F.E. Matthes, the geologist, tells of a snow level of fifty
feet depth in Indian Henry's Hunting Ground, one of Rainier's most
beautiful parks, in which the wind had sunk a crater-like hollow from
the bottom of which emerged a chimney. These snows replenish the
glaciers, which have a combined surface of forty-five square miles,
along their entire length, in addition to making enormous accumulations
in the cirques.
[Illustration: SLUISKIN RIDGE AND COLUMBIA CREST]
[Illustration: _From a photograph copyright by A.H. Barnes_
MOUNT RAINIER SEEN FROM TACOMA]
Beginning then in its cirque, as a river often begins in its lake, the
glacier flows downward, river-like, along a course of least resistance.
Here it pours over a precipice in broken falls to flatten out in perfect
texture in the even stretch below. Here it plunges down rapids, breaking
into crevasses as the river in corresponding phase breaks into ripples.
Here it rises smoothly over rocks upon its bottom. Here it strikes
against a wall of rock and turns sharply. The parallel between the
glacier and the river is striking and consistent, notwithstanding that
the geologist for technical reasons will quarrel with you if you
picturesquely call your glacier a river of ice. Any elevated viewpoint
will disclose several or many of these mighty streams flowing in
snakelike curves down the mountainside, the greater streams swollen here
and there by tributaries as rivers are swollen by entering creeks. And
all eventually reach a point, determined by temperature and therefore
not constant, where the river of ice becomes the river of water.
Beginning white and pure, the glacier gradually clothes itself in rock
and dirt. Gathering as it moves narrow edges of matter filched from the
shores, later on it heaps these up upon its lower banks. They are
lateral moraines. Two merging glaciers unite the material carried on
their joined edges and form a medial moraine, a ribbon broadening and
thickening as it descends; a glacier made up of several tributaries
carries as many medial moraines. It also carries much unorganized matter
fallen from the cliffs or scraped from the bottom. Approaching the
snout, all these accumulations merge into one moraine; and so soiled has
the ice now become that it is difficult to tell which is ice and which
is rock. At its snout is an ice-cave far inside of which the resultant
river originates.
But the glacier has one very important function which the river does not
share. Far up at its beginnings it freezes to the back wall of its
cirque, and, moving forward, pulls out, or plucks out, as the
geologists have it, masses of rock which it carries away in its current.
The resulting cavities in the back of the cirque fill with ice, which in
its turn freezes fast and plucks out more rock. And presently the back
wall of the cirque, undermined, falls on the ice and also is carried
away. There is left a precipice, often sheerly perpendicular; and, as
the process repeats itself, this precipice moves backward. At the
beginning of this process, it must be understood, the glacier lies upon
a tilted surface far more elevated than now when you see it in its old
age, sunk deep in its self-dug trench; and, while it is plucking
backward and breaking off an ever-increasing precipice above it, it is
plucking downward, too. If the rock is even in structure, this downward
cutting may be very nearly perpendicular, but if the rock lies in strata
of varying hardness, shelves form where the harder strata are
encountered because it takes longer to cut them through; in this way are
formed the long series of steps which we often see in empty glacial
cirques.
By this process of backward and downward plucking, the Carbon Glacier
bit its way into the north side of the great volcano until it invaded
the very foundations of the summit and created the Willis Wall which
drops avalanches thirty-six hundred feet to the glacier below. Willis
Wall is nearly perpendicular because the lava rock at this point was
homogeneous. But in the alternating shale and limestone strata of
Glacier National Park, on the other hand, the glaciers of old dug
cirques of many shelves. The monster ice-streams which dug Glacier's
mighty valleys have vanished, but often tiny remainders are still seen
upon the cirques' topmost shelves.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Asahel Curtis_
MOUNT RAINIER AND PARADISE INN IN SUMMER]
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Jacobs_
WINTER PLEASURES AT PARADISE INN, MOUNT RAINIER]
So we see that the glacier acquires its cargo of rock not only by
scraping its sides and plucking it from the bottom of its cirque and
valley, but by quarrying backward till undermined material drops upon
it; all of this in fulfilment of Nature's purpose of wearing down the
highlands for the upbuilding of the hollows.
This is not the place for a detailed description of Mount Rainier's
twenty-eight glaciers. A glance at the map will tell something of the
story. Extending northeasterly from the summit will be seen the greatest
unbroken glacial mass. Here are the Emmons and the Winthrop Glaciers,
much the largest of all. This is the quarter farthest from the sun, upon
which its rays strike at the flattest angle. The melting then is least
here. But still a more potent reason for their larger mass is found in
their position on the lee quarter of the peak, the prevailing winds
whirling in the snow from both sides.
The greater diversification of the other sides of the mountain with
extruding cliffs, cleavers, and enormous rock masses tends strongly to
scenic variety and grandeur. Some of the rock cleavers which divide
glaciers stand several thousand feet in height, veritable fences. Some
of the cliffs would be mountains of no mean size elsewhere, and around
their sides pour mighty glacial currents, cascading to the depths below
where again they may meet and even merge.
The Nisqually Glacier naturally is the most celebrated, not because of
scenic superiority, but because it is the neighbor and the playground of
the visiting thousands. Its perfect and wonderful beauty are not in
excess of many others; and it is much smaller than many. The Cowlitz
Glacier near by exceeds it in size, and is one of the stateliest; it
springs from a cirque below Gibraltar, a massive near-summit rock, whose
well-deserved celebrity is due in some part to its nearness to the
travelled summit trail. The point I am making is not in depreciation of
any of the celebrated sights from the southern side, but in emphasis of
the fact that a hundred other sights would be as celebrated, or more
celebrated, were they as well known. The Mount Rainier National Park at
this writing is replete with splendors which are yet to be discovered by
the greater travelling public.
The great north side, for instance, with its mighty walls, its
magnificently scenic glaciers, its lakes, canyons, and enormous areas of
flowered and forested pleasure-grounds, is destined to wide development;
it is a national park in itself. Already roads enter to camps at the
foot of great glaciers. The west side, also, with its four spectacular
glaciers which pass under the names of Mowich and Tahoma, attains
sublimity; it remains also for future occupation.
Many of the minor phenomena, while common also to other areas of snow
and ice, have fascination for the visitor. Snow-cups are always objects
of interest and beauty. Instead of reducing a snow surface evenly, the
warm sun sometimes melts it in patterned cups set close together like
the squares of a checker-board. These deepen gradually till they suggest
a gigantic honeycomb, whose cells are sometimes several feet deep. In
one of these, one summer day in the Sierra, I saw a stumbling horse
deposit his rider, a high official of one of our Western railroads; and
there he sat helpless, hands and feet emerging from the top, until we
recovered enough from laughter to help him out.
Pink snow always arouses lively interest. A microscopic plant,
Protococcus nivalis, growing in occasional patches beneath the surface
of old snow gradually emerges with a pink glow which sometimes covers
acres. On the tongue its flavor suggests watermelon. No doubt many other
microscopic plants thrive in the snow-fields and glaciers which remain
invisible for lack of color. Insects also inhabit these glaciers. There
are several Thysanura, which suggest the sand-fleas of our seashores,
but are seldom noticed because of their small size. More noticeable are
the Mesenchytraeus, a slender brown worm, which attains the length of an
inch. They may be seen in great numbers on the lower glaciers in the
summer, but on warm days retreat well under the surface.
IV
The extraordinary forest luxuriance at the base of Mount Rainier is due
to moisture and climate. The same heavy snowfalls which feed the
glaciers store up water-supplies for forest and meadow. The winters at
the base of the mountain are mild.
The lower valleys are covered with a dense growth of fir, hemlock, and
cedar. Pushing skyward in competition for the sunlight, trees attain
great heights. Protected from winter's severity by the thickness of the
growth, and from fire by the dampness of the soil, great age is assured,
which means thick and heavy trunks. The Douglas fir, easily the most
important timber-tree of western America, here reaches its two hundred
feet in massive forests, while occasional individuals grow two hundred
and fifty to two hundred and seventy feet with a diameter of eight feet.
The bark at the base of these monsters is sometimes ten inches thick.
The western hemlock also reaches equal heights in competition for the
light, with diameters of five feet or more. Red cedar, white pines of
several varieties, several firs, and a variety of hemlocks complete the
list of conifers. Deciduous trees are few and not important.
Broad-leaved maples, cottonwoods, and alders are the principal species.