Leaving the National Park Inn at Longmire Springs for Paradise Park.
On the Summit, showing Columbia's Crest, the great mound of snow that has, most curiously, formed on this wide, wind-swept platform. This, the actual top of the Mountain, is 14,363 feet above sea level.
Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis.
The west side has been less visited than the others, but there is a trail from the North Mowich to the Nisqually, and from this adventurous explorers reach North and South Mowich and Puyallup glaciers. No one has yet climbed the Mountain over those glaciers, or from the north side. A view from any of the trails will explain why. The great rock spines are more precipitous than elsewhere, the glaciers more broken; and the summit is fronted on either side by a huge parapet of rock which hurls defiance at anything short of an airship. Doubtless, we shall some day travel to Crater Peak by aeroplanes, but until these vehicles are equipped with runners for landing and starting on the snow, we shall do best to plan our ascents from the south or east side.
Paradise Valley or "Park," and Tatoosh Mountains, from slope below Paradise Glacier. The highest of the peaks are about 7,000 feet above sea level and 1,700 feet above the floor of the valley.