The disintegration of the lava galleries in the Mount Adams field has of course produced caves of all sorts and sizes. Where one of these is closed at one end with debris, so that the summer air cannot circulate to displace the heavier cold remaining from winter, the cave, if it has a water supply, becomes an ice factory. The Trout Lake district has several interesting examples of such glacieres, as they have been named, where one may take refuge from July or August heat above ground, and, forty feet below, in a cave well protected from sun and summer breeze, find great masses of ice, with more perhaps still forming as water filters in from a surface lake or an underground spring. The Columbia River towns as far away as Portland and The Dalles formerly obtained ice from the Trout Lake caves, but at present they supply only some near-by farmers.
Mount Adams is ascended without difficulty by either its north or south slope. On the east and west faces, the cliffs and ice cascades appall even the expert alpinist. As yet, so far as I can learn, no ascents have been made over these slopes. The southern route is the more popular one. It leads by well-marked trails up from Guler or Glenwood, over a succession of terraces clad in fine, open forest; ascends McDonald Ridge, amid increasing barriers of lava; passes South Butte, a decaying pillar of red silhouetted against the black rocks and white snow-fields; crosses many a caldron of twisted and broken basalt,—"Devil's Half Acres" that once were the hot, vomiting mouths of drains from the fiery heart of the peak; scales a giants' stairway tilted to forty degrees, overlooking the west branch of Mazama glacier on one side and a small unnamed glacier on the other; and at last gains the broad shoulder which projects far on the south slope. (See illustrations, pp. [89] and [93].)
Nearing the summit, south side.
Here, from a height of nine thousand feet, we look down on the low, wide reservoir of Mazama glacier on the east, and up to the ice-falls above Klickitat glacier on the higher slopes beyond. The great platform on which we stand was built up by a crater, three thousand feet below the summit. The climb to it has disclosed the fact that the mountain is composed mostly of lava. Some of the ravine cuttings have shown lapilli and cinders, but these are rarer than on the other Northwestern peaks. The harder structure has resisted the erosion which is cutting so deeply into the lower slopes of Hood. On Mount Adams, not only do the glaciers, with one or two notable exceptions, lie up on the general surface of the mountain, banked by their moraines; but their streams have cut few deep ravines.
An Upland "Park," west of Hellroaring Canyon.
