II.

THE MOUNTAINS.

Silent and calm, have you e'er scaled the height
Of some lone mountain peak, in heaven's sight?
—Victor Hugo.

There stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpen glow, looming immensely high, beaming with intelligence. It seemed neither near nor far. . . . The whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with ineffable repose and beauty, before which we could only gaze with devout and lowly admiration.—John Muir.

FROM the heights which back the city of Portland on the west, one may have a view that is justly famous among the fairest prospects in America. Below him lies the restless city, busy with its commerce. Winding up from the south comes the Willamette, its fine valley narrowed here by the hills, where the river forms Portland's harbor, and is lined on either side with mills and shipping. Ten miles beyond, the Columbia flows down from its canyon on the east, and turns northward, an expanding waterway for great vessels, to its broad pass through the Coast Range. In every direction, city and country, farm and forest, valley and mountain, stretches a noble perspective. From the wide rivers and their shining borders, almost at sea level, the scene arises, terrace upon terrace, to the encircling hills, and spreads across range after range to the summits of the great Cascades.

Winter on Mount Hood. The roof of the club house of the Portland Snow-shoe Club is seen over the ridge.

Dominating all are the snow-peaks, august sentinels upon the horizon. On a clear day, the long line of them begins far down in central Oregon, and numbers six snowy domes. But any average day includes in its glory the three nearest, Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Spirit-like, they loom above the soft Oregon haze, their glaciers signaling from peak to peak, and their shining summits bidding the sordid world below to look upward.

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Nature has painted canvases more colorful, but none more perfect in its strength and rest. Here is no flare of the desert, none of the flamboyant, terrible beauty of the Grand Canyon. It is a land of warm ocean winds and cherishing sunshine, where the emeralds and jades of the valleys quickly give place to the bluer greens of evergreen forests that cover the hill country; and these, in turn, as distance grows, shade into the lavenders and grays of the successive ranges. The white peaks complete the picture with its most characteristic note. They give it distinction.

Lower end of Eliot glacier, seen from Cooper Spur, and showing the lateral moraines which this receding glacier has built in recent years.

Snout of Eliot glacier, its V-shaped ice front heavily covered with morainal debris.

Such a panorama justifies Ruskin's bold assertion: "Mountains are the beginning and end of all natural scenery." Without its mountains, the view from Council Crest would be as uninteresting as that from any tower in any prairie city. But all mountains are not alike. In beginning our journey to the three great snow-peaks which we have viewed from Portland heights, it is well to define, if we may, the special character of our Northwestern scene. We sometimes hear the Cascade district praised as "the American Switzerland." Such a comparison does injustice alike to our mountains and to the Alps. As a wild, magnificent sea of ice-covered mountain tops, the Alps have no parallel in America. As a far-reaching system of splendid lofty ranges clothed in the green of dense forests and surmounted by towering, isolated summits of snowy volcanoes, the Cascades are wholly without their equal in Europe. This is the testimony of famous travelers and alpinists, among them Ambassador Bryce, who has written of our Northwestern mountain scenery:

We have nothing more beautiful in Switzerland or Tyrol, in Norway or in the Pyrenees. The combination of ice scenery with woodland scenery of the grandest type is to be found nowhere in the Old World, unless it be in the Himalayas, and, so far as we know, nowhere else on the American continent.

Cone of Mount Hood, seen from Cooper Spur on northwest side. A popular route to the summit leads along this ridge of volcanic scoriæ and up the steep snow slope above.

Cloud Cap Inn, north side of Mount Hood. Elevation 5,900 feet.

In his celebrated chapter of the "Modern Painters" which describes the sculpture of the mountains, Ruskin draws a picture of the Alps that at once sets them apart from the Cascades:

The longer I stayed among the Alps, the more I was struck by their being a vast plateau, upon which nearly all the highest peaks stood like children set upon a table, removed far back from the edge, as if for fear of their falling. The most majestic scenes are produced by one of the great peaks having apparently walked to the edge of the table to look over, and thus showing itself suddenly above the valley in its full height. But the raised table is always intelligibly in existence, even in these exceptional cases; and for the most part, the great peaks are not allowed to come to the edge of it, but remain far withdrawn, surrounded by comparatively level fields of mountain, over which the lapping sheets of glacier writhe and flow. The result is the division of Switzerland into an upper and lower mountain world; the lower world consisting of rich valleys, the upper world, reached after the first steep banks of 3,000 to 4,000 feet have been surmounted, consisting of comparatively level but most desolate tracts, half covered by glacier, and stretching to the feet of the true pinnacles of the chain.

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Nothing of this in the Cascades! Instead, we have fold upon fold of the earth-crust, separated by valleys of great depth. The ranges rise from levels but little above the sea. For example, between Portland and Umatilla, although they are separated by the mountains of greatest actual elevation in the United States, there is a difference of less than two hundred and fifty feet, Umatilla, east of the Cascades, being only two hundred and ninety-four feet above tide. Trout Lake, lying below Mount Adams, at the head of one of the great intermountain valleys, has an elevation of less than two thousand feet.

Portland Snow-shoe Club members on Eliot glacier in winter.

Thus, instead of the Northwestern snow-peaks being set far back upon a general upland and hidden away behind lesser mountains, to be seen only after one has reached the plateau, thousands of feet above sea level, they actually rise either from comparatively low peneplanes on one side of the Cascades, as in the case of St. Helens, or from the summit of one of the narrow, lofty ridges, as do Hood and Adams. But in either case, the full elevation is seen near at hand and from many directions—an elevation, therefore, greater and more impressive than that of most of the celebrated Alpine summits.

Famous as is the valley of Chamonix, and noteworthy as are the glaciers to which it gives close access, its views of Mont Blanc are disappointing. Not until the visitor has scaled one of the neighboring aiguilles, can he command a satisfactory outlook toward the Monarch of the Alps. And nowhere in Switzerland do I recall a picture of such memorable splendor as greets the traveler from the Columbia, journeying either southward, up the Hood River Valley toward Mount Hood, or northward, up the White Salmon Valley toward Trout Lake and Mount Adams. Here is unrolled a wealth of fertile lowlands, surrounded by lofty ranges made beautiful by their deep forests and rising to grandeur in their snow-peaks.

Butterfly on the summit of Mount Hood.

Leaving the canyon of the Columbia, in either direction the road follows swift torrents of white glacial water that tell of a source far above. It crosses a famous valley, among its orchards and hayfields, but always in view of the dark blue mountains and of the snow-covered volcanoes that rise before and behind, their glaciers shining like polished steel in the sunlight. So the visitor reaches the foot of his mountain. Losing sight of it for a time, he follows long avenues of stately trees as he climbs the benches. In a few hours he stands upon a barren shoulder of the peak, at timber line. A new world confronts him. The glaciers reach their icy arms to him from the summit, and he breathes the winds that sweep down from their fields of perennial snow.

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Fumarole, or gas vent, near Crater Rock.

It is all very different from Switzerland, this quick ascent from bending orchards and forested hills to a mighty peak standing white and beautiful in its loneliness. But it is so wonderful that Americans who love the heights can no longer neglect it, and each year increasing numbers are discovering that here in the Northwest is mountain scenery worth traveling far to see, with very noble mountains to climb, true glaciers to explore, and the widest views of grandeur and interest to enjoy. Such sport combines recreation and inspiration.

Looking across the head of Eliot glacier from near the summit of Mount Hood.

The traveler from Portland to either Mount Hood or Mount Adams may go by rail or steamer to Hood River, Oregon, or White Salmon, Washington. These towns are on opposite banks of the Columbia at its point of greatest beauty. Thence he will journey by automobile or stage up the corresponding valley to the snow-peak at its head. If he is bound for Mount Hood his thirty-mile ride will bring him to a charming mountain hotel, Cloud Cap Inn, placed six thousand feet above the sea, on a ridge overlooking Eliot glacier, Hood's finest ice stream.

Mount Hood at night, seen from Cloud Cap Inn. This view is from a negative exposed from nine o'clock until midnight.

If Mount Adams be his destination, a ride of similar length from White Salmon will bring him merely to the foot of the mountain. The stages run only to Guler, on Trout Lake, and to Glenwood. Each of these villages has a comfortable country hotel which may be made the base for fishing and hunting in the neighborhood. Each is about twelve miles from the snow-line. At either place, guides, horses and supplies may be had for the trip to the mountain. Glenwood is nearer to the famous Hellroaring Canyon and the glaciers of the southeast side. Guler is a favorite point of departure for the south slope and for the usual route to the summit.

Another popular starting point for Mount Adams is Goldendale, reached by a branch of the North Bank railway from Lyle on the Columbia. This route also leads to the fine park district on the southeastern slope, and it has a special attraction, as it skirts the remarkable canyon of the Klickitat River. Many parties also journey to the mountain from North Yakima and other towns on the Northern Pacific railway. Hitherto, all such travel from either north or south has meant a trip on foot or horseback over interesting mountain trails, and has involved the necessity of packing in camp equipment and supplies. During the present summer, a hotel is to be erected a short distance from the end of Mazama glacier, at an altitude of about sixty-five hundred feet, overlooking Hellroaring Canyon on one side, and on the other a delightful region of mountain tarns, waterfalls and alpine flower meadows. Its verandas will command the Mazama and Klickitat glaciers, and an easy route will lead to the summit. With practicable roads from Goldendale and Glenwood, it should draw hosts of lovers of scenery and climbing, and aid in making this great mountain as well known as it deserves to be.

Visitors going to Mount Hood from Portland have choice of a second very attractive hotel base in Government Camp, on the south slope at an altitude of thirty-nine hundred feet. This is reached by automobiles from the city, over a fair road that will soon be a good road, thanks to the Portland Automobile Club. The mountain portion of this highway is the historic Barlow road, opened in 1845, the first wagon road constructed across the Cascades. As the motor climbs out of the Sandy River valley, and grapples the steep moraines built by ancient icefields, the traveler gets a very feeling reminder of the pluck of Captain Barlow and his company of Oregon "immigrants" in forcing a way across these rugged heights. But the beauty of the trip makes it well worth while, and Government Camp gives access to a side of the peak that should be visited by all who would know how the sun can shatter a big mountain with his mighty tools of ice.

North side of Mount Hood, seen from moraine of Coe glacier. This glacier flows down from the summit, where its snow-field adjoins that of Eliot glacier (left). West of the Coe, the Ladd glacier is seen, separated from the former by Pulpit Rock, the big crag in the middle distance, and Barrett Spur, the high ridge on the right.

Summit of Mount Hood, from Mazama Rock, showing the sun-cupped ice of midsummer.

The hotel here was erected in 1900 by O. C. Yocum, under whose competent 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, seen from Sandy River canyon, six miles west of snow line. This important picture begins with Barrett Spur and Ladd glacier on the north sky line (left). On the northwest face of the peak is the main Sandy glacier, its end divided by a ridge into two parts. The forested "plowshare" projecting into the canyon is Yocum Ridge. South of it the south branch of the Sandy river flows down from a smaller glacier called the Little Sandy, or Reid. The broad bottom of this canyon and the scored cliffs on its sides show that it was formerly occupied by the glacier.