Mount Adams from Trout Creek, at Guler, near Trout Lake; distance twelve miles.

[Enlarge]

MOUNT ADAMS.

Going up the White Salmon Valley toward Mount Adams, the visitor quickly realizes that he is in a different geological district from that around Mount Hood. The Oregon peak is mainly a pile of volcanic rocks and cinders ejected from its crater. Little hard basalt is found, and in all its circumference I know of only one large surface area of new lava. This is a few miles north of Cloud Cap, and so recent that no trees grow on it. But north of the Columbia, one meets evidences of comparatively recent lava sheets in many parts of the valley. Some obviously have no connection with Mount Adams; they flowed out of fissures on the ridges. But these beds of volcanic rock become more apparent, and are less covered with soil, as we approach the mountain, until, long before timber line is reached, dikes and streams of basalt, as yet hardly beginning to disintegrate, are found on all sides of the peak.

Dawn on Mount Adams, telephotographed from Guler, at 4 a. m., showing the three summit peaks, of which the middle one is the highest. The route of the climbers is up the south slope, seen on right.

Foraging in the snow. The Mount Adams country supports hundreds of large flocks of sheep.