IV
MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK
Mount Rainier is one of the noblest and most imposing mountains in the world. It stands isolated. Around it are countless peaks, but these are so small that they but emphasize the colossal bulk and towering height of majestic Rainier. It is 14,408 feet high. The altitudinal sweep of the Park is ten thousand feet. Only Mount Rainier territory is in the Park. The area is three hundred and twenty-four square miles—about eighteen miles square. Yet so vast is this mountain that an extensive part of it is outside the Park boundaries. Its outline is intensified by the extraordinary make-up of black and white which characterizes it. The upper half of it is strangely white with masses of snow and ice. The lower slopes are purplish black with dense coniferous forests. Between the snow and the forest is a magnificent belt of wild flowers.
Mount Rainier is a sleeping volcano. Beneath its shell of stone is a heart of fire. Upon this shell are snow-fields and glaciers, rushing rivers, a stupendous forest, wild-flower gardens in which millions of "bannered blossoms open their bosoms to the sun."
Additional territory is needed to protect scenery not now in the Park, and especially for Park road development. At a number of points along the southern boundary the road winds outside the Park. A similar condition will exist on the eastern side when the eastern road-system is built. Much good would result from starting at the southeast corner of the Park and adding a six-mile strip twelve miles long on the south and another strip of equal size on the east.
Mount Rainier lies about sixty miles eastward from Seattle and Tacoma. An excellent automobile road enters the southern boundary and extends into the Park, passing the snout of the Nisqually Glacier. The road-plan of the Park embraces an encircling scenic highway around the mountain on the lower slopes. This road is to be united with entrance roads from the north, south, east, and west. A trail about fifty miles long circles this peak near timber-line. It penetrates fifty miles of unexcelled beauty and splendor. It touches a thousand different scenes and ever commands the world of light and shade that lies far below and far away.
STAGE ROAD, MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK
Small inns are to be built along this wilderness way. What a poetic, scene-crowded way to travel! Every boy and girl might well plan to walk round mighty Rainier on this commanding circle pathway.