A cup, carpeted with grass, walled with crags; an amphitheater studded with trees, hemmed in by banks of snow, and roofed by blue sky—such is the basin of the Elwha. At the far end is a wall of rock, over which tumbles the jolly little infant river in a silvery cascade, and beyond is a snow bank jutting into the greenery of an upper meadow. From a dark cave at the glacial snowbank's base the river seemed to have its start, though beyond the snow, from still loftier cliffs, fluttered another ribbon of water coming from unseen heights beyond. Westerly a few jagged snow peaks peered down upon us over the nearer cliffs, and great shadows reached across the pleasant valley to the very base of our little hill of vantage.
At the near end of the basin we found a wonderful camp place all prepared by our thoughtful nature hostess. It was a cave at the foot of a cliff, whose ceiling of overhanging rock protected admirably against the vagaries of the elements, while wood and water were close at hand, and ferns and flowers made Elysian setting. We turned Billy loose in the knee-high grass, where he spent a week of loafing, unable, for once, to escape, thanks to the cliffs and a back trail easily blocked by felling a few small trees. Happily, then, we sprawled upon our blankets, with the sweet-smelling spruce boughs beneath us and the warm light of the fire playing odd pranks with the dancing shadows in our rock-roofed resting place. Beyond the ghostly circle of the firelight were the jet outlines of trees, and, farther, reaching up to a million stars, the mountains. And beyond those mountains lay Olympus, for whom we had come so far and now must go still farther.
The few unessentials of our commissary we left at the cave, and with grub for five days and bedding on our backs, and the ice axes in our hands, like the bear of the song, we started over the mountain to see what we could see.
A steep snow chute called the Dodwell and Rickson Pass was our way of passage over the divide to the Queets Basin, where the river of that name commenced its journey to the Pacific, while behind us the melting snows that formed the Elwha found outlet eastward in Puget Sound. As we trudged up the steep slopes of the Pass it was soon apparent that other travelers beside ourselves used the snowy route, for broad tracks showed where bruin on his own broad bottom had coasted down the incline but a few hours previously, a recreation youthful bears seem to enjoy about as thoroughly as men cubs. There was indeed a goodly population of bear in the upper regions of the Queets, and the hide of one of them is at my fireside now. It would have been no trick at all to kill several, for we saw them daily foraging among the blueberry uplands, with their pink tongues snaking out first on one side, then on the other, garnering in the fruit from the low bushes. But we could pack only one skin, so we left the others warming their owners, where they most properly belonged.
Queets Basin is a rough mountain valley, covered for the most part only with berry bushes, and with rocky gorges cutting its surface where the river's several branches had worn away deep courses. Overshadowing the basin were the outposts of Olympus itself, with the snout of Humes's glacier thrusting its icy seracs almost into the berry land, and the pinnacled peaks behind rising majestically against the northern skyline. Westward, the roaring Queets vanished down a canyon, through a country of the roughest kind, and, we were told, one hitherto unexplored. A journey to the sea following the white-watered Queets would be a worth-while experience, we thought, seeing the first mile of it; but like many another, the Mountain Climber and I, unless we live to the age of Methuselah and devote all our years to outings, will never be able to take one half the trips we have planned and secretly long for; exclusive of our cherished ramble down the Queets!
The packs slipped from our backs at the base of a giant fir, and we called it camp. Next to the bear who almost thrust his nose into my bed next morning, my most vivid recollection of that camp was the blueberry bread we concocted in the frying-pan, which was fit for the very gods of old Olympus.
Then we climbed Olympus.
Coming on the heels of Mt. McKinley, it was no great feat of mountaineering for the Mountain Climber, but nevertheless it combined happily all the varied attractions of climbing. The ascent of Olympus does, indeed, entail almost every sort of mountaineering, and some of it reasonably difficult and dangerous. In the first place, the approach to the mountain is perhaps its crowning feature; it is a man's sized trip to get within striking distance, and to its inaccessibility is due the fact that up to 1907 it was unscaled. When once reached, there are goodly glaciers to be conquered, vast snow fields to be negotiated, some hard ice work, and a lot of stiff climbing, all at long range from the nearest practical base camp.
By daybreak we were under way. Through bushes, across a ravine, up a narrow tongue of snow in a "chimney," and then over a shoulder of rock débris, an outshoot of the lower lateral moraine of the Humes's glacier, and we found ourselves on the seracs of the glacier's snout, with no choice but to take to them. By the time we had found a way over the broken green ice, with its sudden chasms, the sun was warm at our backs and the chill of the dawn was forgotten. Then we emerged from the ice hummocks which mightily resembled a storm-tossed sea suddenly petrified, and commenced the leg-wearying ascent of the long snow field above, which clothed the glacier and stretched toward a rim of dark cliffs, the summit of the divide between us and Olympus proper. Toward the lowest saddle in this rocky wall we set our course.
