NATURAL PILLARS, COLUMBIA RIVER.
Twenty-five miles from the palisades, and reached by means of comfortable stages over a good road, is Mount Hood, one of the loftiest, as well as the most impressive, dead volcanoes to be found anywhere in the world, of which it has been written: “The view from the summit of Hood is one of unsurpassed grandeur, and probably includes in its range a greater number of high peaks and vast mountain chains, grand forests and mighty rivers, than any other mountain in North America. Looking across the Columbia, the ghostly pyramids of Adams and St. Helens, with their connecting ridges of eternal snow, first catch the eye; then comes the silent, lofty Ranier, with the blue waters of Puget Sound and the rugged Olympia Mountains for a background; and away to the extreme north (nearly to H. B. M.’s dominions), veiled in earth mists and scarcely discernible from the towering cumuli that inswathe it, lies Mount Baker. Looking south over Oregon, the view embraces the Three Sisters (all at one time), Jefferson, Diamond Peak, Scott, Pit, and, if it be a favorable day, and you have a good glass, you may see Shasta, 250 miles away. The westward view is down over the lower coast range, the Umpqua, Calapooya, and Rogue River Mountains, with their sunny upland valleys, and away out over the restless ocean. In the opposite direction, across the illimitable plains of Eastern Oregon, to the Azure Blue Mountains; down, almost to the foot of this mountain, ‘rolls the Columbia,’ through the narrow, rugged gorge of ‘The Dalles,’ 250 miles of its winding course being visible. The entire length of the great Willamette Valley, with its pleasant, prosperous towns and gently-flowing river, its broad, fertile farms, like rich mosaics, with borders of dark-green woodlands, is spread out in great beauty under the western slope of Mount Hood.”
THE CRATER OF MOUNT HOOD.
ON THE ROUTE TO CRATER LAKE.
Tourists need not cross the ocean and travel to Switzerland to see wild and grand and splendid mountain scenery, because it can be found in a thousand places in America on a much grander scale than anywhere in the Alps. An evidence of this is seen in the photograph of the crater of Mount Hood, on this page; and all along the Cascade, Rocky and other mountain ranges of our country, similar, and even grander, views can be observed by the thousands. We also present on this page an interesting portrait of our “mountain helper,” in obtaining views for Glimpses of America.