of the Northwest; to gather into permanent form the history
and traditions of this region; to preserve, by protective
legislation or otherwise, the natural beauty of north-western
America; to make expeditions into these regions in fulfilment
of the above purposes; to encourage a spirit of good-fellowship
among all lovers of outdoor life--these were the avowed
purposes for which a group of nature lovers met in Seattle in
January, 1907, and organized The Mountaineers. Since then, the
membership has expanded to over half a thousand, and knows no
geographical bounds. Nearly a hundred men and women contributed
themselves in the recent war, while those at home rendered
active service in collecting sphagnum moss, making surgical
dressings, and otherwise trying to do their part. Branches have
been organized, property acquired, permanent funds established,
and the Club has now become one of the worthwhile organizations
of the Pacific Northwest.
“Summer outings and the snowshoe trip to Mt. Rainier with which
the Club welcomes in each new year are the most striking
of its activities. For three weeks each summer a hobnailed,
khaki-clad party of from fifty to one hundred men and women
enjoy a well planned hike into some mountainous region, and
usually climb some famous peak. Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt.
Olympus, Glacier Peak, Mt. Stewart, Mt. St. Helens, and many
others have been climbed once or more. Glacier National Park,
as well as our own Monte Cristo region, has also been visited.
“With pack trains, hired packers, and professional cooks along,
little of the unpleasant work of camping falls on the members,
yet, with each individual’s dunnage limited to thirty-five
pounds, and with frequent shifting of camps and plenty of snow
and rock work, genuine outing experience is afforded. The
leadership is wholly by members, and every precaution is taken
for the safety of the party.
“The snowshoe trip to Mt. Rainier in midwinter must be taken to
be comprehended. Paradise Valley in summer is brilliant with
its mountain flowers, but in winter it is enchantingly somber
with its deep-laid snow, through which emerge the conical
trees with their symmetry of drooping branches peculiar to
the snow-laden conifers. Snowshoeing, skiing, tobogganing,
and climbing afford ample exercise, while the hotel (usually
approached through a snow tunnel) with its comfortable beds and
provisions brought up in summer time, relieves the party of the
usual hardships of winter trips. In the evenings, before the
big fireplaces, vaudeville performances, circuses, and other
entertainments rival similar affairs held in the evenings of
the summer outings.
“Winter and summer trips are taken to Snoqualmie Lodge, a
large log structure built by the Club near the backbone of
the Cascade Range, but easily accessible both to railroad and
highway, as well as to rugged mountains like Chair Peak and
Silver Tip.
“A wholly different region may be enjoyed at the Club’s
Rhododendron Park, a large area across Puget Sound, brilliant
each May with a profusion of the white and pink of the state
flower. The Club is planning the construction of a cabin in the
mountains near Everett, and also one near Tacoma.
“Lecturers are procured for monthly meetings, a collection of
slides maintained of the mountains visited by the Club, botany
and other sciences pursued, and the results of each year’s
activities summarized in an annual publication. A bulletin is
also published forecasting each month’s activities.
“Beneficial as the foregoing may be, the greatest service to
the greatest number is afforded by what are prosaically known
as ‘local walks.’ On each of two or three Sundays of the month
a committee in charge has carefully planned a hike of from
eight to twenty miles by road, trail, or beach. As many as two
hundred persons have sometimes gone on one of these trips.
Stenographers, teachers, clerks, professors, nurses, lawyers,
doctors, men and women, are taken from the cramped atmosphere
of offices, schoolrooms, and hospitals out into the freedom of
the wild, to breathe the fresh sea air, and to acquire that
physical health and hearty mien which are such stimulants to
the growth of character.”
The secretary’s address is 402 Burke Building, Seattle, Washington.
Other western mountaineering clubs are the Mazamas, of Oregon,
headquarters, Suite 213-214 Northwestern Bank Building, Portland; and the
Colorado Mountain Club.
ASSOCIATED MOUNTAINEERING CLUBS OF NORTH AMERICA
The Associated Mountaineering Clubs of North America, an organization
effected in 1916, characterizes itself as a _Bureau_. It has brought
into association thirty-one clubs and societies, having an aggregate
membership of 62,000. A list of these follows:
American Alpine Club, Philadelphia and New York.
American Forestry Association, Washington.
American Game Protective Association, New York.
American Museum of Natural History, New York.
Adirondack Camp and Trail Club, Lake Placid Club, N. Y.
Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston and New York.
Boone and Crockett Club, New York.
British Columbia Mountaineering Club, Vancouver.
Colorado Mountain Club, Denver.
Dominion Parks Branch, Department of the Interior, Ottawa.
Field and Forest Club, Boston.
Forest Service, U. S. Dept. Agriculture, Washington.
Fresh Air Club, New York.
Geographic Society of Chicago.
Geographical Society of Philadelphia.
Green Mountain Club, Rutland, Vermont.
Hawaiian Trail and Mountain Club, Honolulu.
Klahhane Club, Port Angeles, Washington.
Mazamas, Portland, Oregon.
Mountaineers, Seattle and Tacoma.
National Association of Audubon Societies, New York.
National Parks Association, Washington.
National Park Service, U. S. Dept. Interior, Washington, D. C.
New York Zoological Society, New York.
Prairie Club, Chicago.
Rocky Mountain Climbers Club, Boulder, Colorado.
Sagebrush and Pine Club, Yakima, Washington.
Sierra Club, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Tramp and Trail Club, New York.
Travel Club of America, New York.
Wild Flower Preservation Society of America, New York.
The Bulletin of the Bureau, published in May, 1919, states:
“Associated by common aims these clubs and societies are
standing for the protection and development of scenic regions,
and for the preservation of tree, flower, bird, and animal
life. We encourage the creation, development, and protection of
National Parks, Monuments, and Forest Reserves, and our members
are being educated by literature and lectures to a deeper
appreciation of our natural wonders and resources.
“During the past year the Bureau has continued to send to its
members many books on mountaineering and outdoor subjects. The
collection of mountain literature and photographs in the New
York Public Library, 476 Fifth Avenue, has been increased. The
Library has published a selected Bibliography of Mountaineering
Literature, which was compiled by the librarian of the American
Alpine Club, and expects to issue a similar list of the
literature of Wild-life Protection.… The secretary has written
and has published a series of articles on little-known scenic
regions of North America, and he is lecturing before leading
clubs and societies on The National Wonders of the United
States and Canada.…
“Lantern slides may be borrowed by members of the Association
on application.”
Note is made in the Bulletin of the International Congress of Alpinists,
which is to be held at Monaco, May 10 to 16, 1920. Relationships
with the several organizations which have to do with the care of and
development of the national parks are explained. A directory of the
constituent organizations is given.
The secretary is Mr. LeRoy Jeffers, 476 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF WALKING CLUBS
OVERFLOW
Hush!
With sudden gush
As from a fountain, sings in yonder bush
The Hermit Thrush.
Hark!
Did ever Lark
With swifter scintillations fling the spark
That fires the dark?
Again,
Like April rain
Of mist and sunshine mingled, moves the strain
O’er hill and plain.
Strong
As love, O Song,
In flame or torrent sweep through Life along,
O’er grief and wrong.
John Banister Tabb.
V
ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF WALKING CLUBS
Those who live reasonably near the home or field of existing clubs are
urged to relate themselves to them. Don’t organize hastily. Be sure,
first, of two things: that a fair-sized continuing membership is to
be expected, to be advantaged by a club; and, second, that, in the
multiplicity of already existing societies, there is place for another.
Remember that the persons who will be interested and whose interest and
support are desired, will in large part be persons already giving much
time to altruistic activity. Think this matter through, taking advice of
persons of experience and judgment. It may be better, in a given case, to
widen the activities of some existing organization--canoe club, perhaps,
or Audubon Society--than to form a new one. Pedestrianism may well have
place in the program of school, Y. M. C. A., or Boy Scout Troop. But of
this something will be said in the sequel. In a city, however, a walking
club may well stand on its own feet; and, in such a favored region as the
Green Mountains, for example, to organize a walking club comes near to
being a public duty.
THE ACTIVITIES OF A WALKING CLUB
Before opening a discussion of the formalities of organization, it will
be well to consider what the normal activities of a walking club are;
for to the end in view the machinery of organization, simple or complex,
should be adapted. The activities of a club may be regarded as of two
sorts, and, in lieu of better terms, may be designated as primary and
secondary. Primary activities concern the actual business of walking:
development of the pedestrian resources of some particular region, trail
making, map making, publishing of data, maintaining a bureau, conducting
hikes, affording instruction, and contributing seriously to the growing
literature of pedestrianism. Secondary activities consist in conducting
dinners and other social entertainment, in providing illustrated lectures
on travel, popular science, and kindred subjects. There is need of care,
to keep such activities in their proper secondary place. The primary
activities require further consideration.
_Development of the Pedestrian Resources of Some Particular Region_
This should be an aim of every walking club. The region to be developed
will in many--in most cases, indeed--be the region about home. Clubs in
large cities, however, and clubs situated in regions not suitable for
walking, may well turn attention, wholly or in part, to regions far from
home. The mountainous parts of a continent are the natural recreation
grounds for the whole people, and those who live far away may still
have their proper share in making these parts more readily available.
In the Alps, the pedestrian is pleased to find the lodges where he
stops at night called by the names of distant cities, whose citizens
maintain them--_Breslauerhütte_, for example, or _Dusseldorferhütte_.
In this country, too, the Green Mountain Club (see page 84) has its New
York Section; and to the New York Section it has allotted a certain
portion of the Long Trail (a length of fifty miles). The New York club,
accordingly, while not neglectful of pedestrianism at home, opens,
develops, and maintains its part of the route in Vermont, and conducts
annually a hike in that region.
The development of a region involves observation and putting into
communicable form the results of observation, and it may and ordinarily
does involve further a greater or less amount of physical preparation.
First of all, the region must be traversed, and that again and again,
under varying conditions of season and climate, and thus thoroughly
known. Maps, if available, must be carefully studied, and particular
attention must be given to distances, steepness of roads, and to the
nature of the footing--whether the way be rough or smooth, hard or
soft, wet or dry. Note should be made of obstructions, such as briars,
fallen trees, and unbridged streams. The possibility of using railways
and trolley lines to widen the available area should not be forgotten.
Hotels should be noted, and restaurants, and farmhouses, where rest and
refreshment may be had; and, in the wilderness, camp sites should be
selected.
Observation should next be directed to such natural resources as may
engage the attention and interest of the pedestrian: scenery, of course,
hilltops, waterfalls, and such matters; then to plant and animal life,
and that with the interests of sportsmen and lovers of natural science
particularly in mind. Attention should be given to geology and to
mineral deposits. Then the history of the region should be studied,
its traditions learned, and its monuments considered--distinctive and
characteristic matters touching the life of the people, industries,
factories, public works, and buildings.
All of these matters should be taken into account, with a view to making
the results of observation and study generally available.
_Trail Making_
“Of trail making there are three stages. There is dreaming the trail,
there is prospecting the trail, there is making the trail. Of the first
one can say nothing--dreams are fragile, intangible. Prospecting the
trail--there lies perhaps the greatest of the joys of trail work. It has
a suggestion of the thrill of exploration. No one of us but loves still
to play explorer. And here there is just a bit of the real thing to keep
the play going. Picking the trail route over forested ridges calls for
every bit of the skill gained in our years of tramping. There is never
time to go it slow, to explore every possibility. Usually there is one
hasty day to lay out the line for a week’s work. For a basis there is the
look of the region, from some distant point, from a summit climbed last
year, perhaps. For a help, there is the compass, but in our hill country
we use it little. Partly we go by imperfect glimpses from trees climbed,
from blow-down edges, from small cliffs--but chiefly we feel the run of
the land, its lift and slope and direction. The string from the grocer’s
cone unwinds behind--an easy way of marking and readily obliterated when
we go wrong. We pay little heed to small difficulties, those are for the
trail makers to solve. Only a wide blow-down, a bad ledge, a mistake in
general direction, cause us to double back a bit and start afresh.…
“Making trail is the more plodding work; yet has reliefs and pleasures
of its own. Each day, as the gang works along the string line, problems
of detail arise. Ours is no gang of uninterested hirelings. If the line
makes a suspicious bend, the prospectors have to explain or correct.…
Decision made, the gang scatters along the line, each to a rod or two,
for we find working together is not efficient.[4]”
As has already been said, a club ordinarily will find occasion to do
some work of physical preparation of its pedestrian routes. Highways are
ordinarily beyond control, but byways are not. The opening of trails,
cutting away of briars and windfalls, making the footing sure for a man
under a pack, the building of footways and handrails in dangerous places,
the cleaning of springs and providing water basins and troughs, the
marking of trails--all these matters are such as manifestly should engage
a club’s energies.
Trail making is by no means a simple matter. The successful trail-maker
(and trails should be successfully made) must be expert in woodcraft;
he must understand topography--the “lay of the land”; he must know from
what side to approach a summit, how best to pass a valley--whether to go
around or through it. With knowledge of these matters, his occupation
is a most interesting one. Irresponsible and unauthorized trail making
should be discouraged.
A word of caution is, “Do, but don’t overdo.” Particularly is this word
of caution to be carried in mind in the matter of blazing trails. Let
the marks be sufficient, and no more; let them be as inconspicuous as is
consistent with their purpose. In marking trails, don’t blaze trees, nor
deface objects of interest and beauty. The best trail mark is a colored
arrow, affixed to tree trunk or fence post, or painted on a rock face.
Such an arrow may, by color, position, and legends displayed upon it,
afford as much information as may be desired, about route, distance,
elevation, detours, springs, and other matters.
Resting places may be built; pavilions, perhaps, in the woods, where
walkers may have lunch under protection from rain. Or, when conditions
justify, houses may be built and equipped, to afford food and lodging. In
this connection, the _alpenhütten_ elsewhere mentioned (page 106) will
come to mind. In other places, tents may be erected for the summer, and
caretakers employed.
In case a club has under its care a wide extent of wilderness--as has
the New York Section of the Green Mountain Club, for example--a ranger
will be employed, and his duties will include the care of trails,
prevention of fires, and protection of property. He may, if expedient, be
constituted game warden also.
“Some of us have been blessed of the Gods, permitted to make
trail in the timberline country of the Mt. Washington range.
Everyone who has tried it is unhappy till he is doing it again.
That is why there are so many trails there. I came rather late;
my experience in that fascinating country has been little more
than that of the common or idiotic tramper, scuttling from
hut to hut on schedule. Always, summer or winter, I am glad
to be starting for timberline, and content when there. When,
after the long climb, I suddenly realize that the trees are
lowering fast, that underbrush has vanished, that a sensation
of altitude and space is pressing for conscious recognition, I
feel a lift and urge--timberline again!
“And what is timberline? It is the level at which the mean
annual temperature--yes, but it is the sweep of vast spaces,
the drift of cloud-shadows, the infinite gradations of distant
color. It is the hiss of wind in the firs, the strain against
bitter gusts, the keen concentration to hold the trail through
dense and drifting fog. It is the plod and lift under the pack,
the crunch of creepers, the slow struggle through tangled
scrubs.”[5]
_Map Making_
Maps of unmapped regions should be prepared.
Study a good map--a quadrangle of the U. S. Geological Survey, for
instance. Note what things are represented, and how representation is
made: study the map, until it is thoroughly understood.
There are three factors with which the map-maker deals: direction,
distance, and elevation. With the first, he must always reckon, and
usually with the second and the third as well.
Direction is fundamental. Suppose there are three dominant points in the
area to be mapped, relatively situated as here indicated.
[Illustration]
The first problem is, to get those points set down on paper accurately,
in proper relative positions.
The map-maker begins, say, at _B_. He has provided himself with a
_sketching board_, having a sheet of paper tacked upon it, and with a
ruler and a _pencil_. He sets his board up and carefully levels it. He
then marks upon the paper a point _b_ which in the completed map is to
indicate this station _B_ of first observation--the point where he now
stands. Knowing in a general way the area which he wishes to map, and
observing from his station the directions in which the distant objects
_A_ and _C_ lie, he so places point _b_ that his paper will afford space
for the intended map.
The map-maker then lays his ruler upon the paper, brings its edge close
to point _b_, and sighting from point _b_ on the paper to the distant
object _A_, turns the ruler until its edge coincides with the line of
sight. Then he draws upon the paper a line or “ray” from point _b_ toward
object _A_. In like manner he sets his ruler again and draws a second
ray, from _b_ toward the distant object _C_, thus:
[Illustration]
Having fixed point _b_ and drawn the two rays _b-A_ and _b-C_, the
map-maker leaves station _B_ and goes to either of the other points: to
point _C_, say. He there sets his board up again, and levels it carefully
as before. He turns the board until, sighting along the previously drawn
ray _C-b_, the now distant station _B_ is exactly covered. Then he lays
the ruler again upon the paper, and turns it until, sighting along its
edge, distant object _A_ is exactly covered. He then draws a ray along
the edge of the ruler thus:
[Illustration]
The points _a_ and _c_, where this ray intersects the two previously
drawn rays, are the presentment of the points _A_ and _C_ in the area
under observation, and a map of the area is begun.
These three points may be mountain summits, trees, telegraph poles,
chimneys, or any other conspicuous features of the landscape, and they
may be distant one from another 50 miles or 500 yards; they are set down
on paper in their true relative positions; they are _mapped_.
In the making of the map thus far, one and only one of the three factors
mentioned above has been taken into the reckoning: the factor of
_direction_, namely; and the resulting map is drawn to an unknown scale.
It is drawn to _some_ scale, of course; there is _some_ ratio between its
distances and the distances at which the objects stand apart, but the
ratio is unknown. It may be determined: the distance from _B_ to _C_ may
be measured, and the distance _b-c_ on the map may be measured, and the
ratio of the two distances ascertained. That ratio is the scale to which
the map is drawn. Thus the second factor, that of _distance_, enters in.
It may be reckoned with from the beginning.
Suppose the two points _B_ and _C_, above mentioned, to be signal towers
on a straight stretch of railway, and the point _A_ to be the chimney of
a house standing by the side of a wagon road which crosses the railroad
at _C_. The map-maker, having at _B_ set down the data described above,
in proceeding to _C_, paces the distance from _B_ to _C_, and finds it to
be, _e.g._, 3,500 feet. He has previously determined what the scale of
his map is to be: say, 1 inch to 1000 feet. He then carefully lays off on
ray _b-C_ 3½ inches from the point _b_, and thus he fixes point _c_. He
then sets up his drawing-board at _C_; but, instead of shifting the ruler
freely upon the paper, he sights from point _c_ to distant object _A_ and
brings the edge of the ruler into coincidence with the line of sight. He
draws along the edge of the ruler the ray _c-A_, which, intersecting the
previously drawn ray _b-A_, gives him the point _a_.
The railroad from _b_ to _c_ may be indicated thus,
[Illustration]
and the highroad from _c_ to _a_ represented by two closely spaced
parallel lines. (The conventional signs for various features of
topography may be found on the back of a U. S. Geological Survey
quadrangle.) On the way from _B_ to _C_ there may be a bridge, crossing
a stream. The map-maker, pacing the distance, will, without stopping or
interrupting the swing of his stride, note the number of paces from _B_
to the bridge, as well as from _B_ to _C_. He will then have the figures,
and can accurately place the bridge upon his map.
He now has a map of a length of railroad and of a length of intersecting
highway, drawn to the known scale of 1″ = 1000′.
And, be it noted, this has been accomplished without visiting the point
_A_ at all.
Suppose now there be a haystack _D_, and a tree on a hilltop _E_,
situated with respect to the points already considered thus:
[Illustration]
They may be mapped in like manner. The map-maker goes successively to
any two of the three points _A_, _B_, and _C_ from which the object to
be plotted (_D_ or _E_) is visible; he sets his board at each place,
levels it, and turns it until the ray on the map from the point where
he stands to another point lies directly in the line of sight to that
other point in the landscape. Having so oriented his board, he draws at
his successive stations rays in the direction of the object to be mapped
(_D_ or _E_.) The point _d_ or _e_ where those rays intersect will be the
mapped location of the object.