View South from Cowlitz Glacier: elevation, 8,000 feet. Seven miles away are the huge eastern peaks of the Tatoosh. The Cascades beyond break in Cispus Pass, and rise, on the left, to the glacier summits called Goat Peaks. The truncated cone of Mt. Adams, more than forty miles away, crowns the sky-line.
These views show the larger of the two comparatively modern and small craters on the broad platform left by the explosion which decapitated the Peak.
These views show the larger of the two comparatively modern and small craters on the broad platform left by the explosion which decapitated the Peak. Prof. Flett measured this crater, and found it 1,600 feet from north to south, and 1,450 feet from east to west. The other, much smaller, adjoins it so closely that their rims touch. Together they form an eminence of 1,000 feet (Crater Peak), at a distance of about two miles from North Peak (Liberty Cap) and South Peak (Peak Success). At the junction of their rims is the great snow hill (on right of view) called "Columbia's Crest." This is the actual summit. The volcano having long been inactive, the craters are filled with snow, but the residual heat causes steam and gases to escape in places along their rims.
This mound of snow is the present actual top. Believing it the highest point in the United States south of Alaska, a party of climbers, in 1894, named it "Columbia's Crest." This was long thought to be the Mountain's rightful distinction, for different computations by experts gave various elevations ranging as high as 14,529 feet, with none prior to 1902 giving less than 14,444 feet. Even upon a government map published as late as 1907 the height is stated as 14,526 feet. In view of this variety of expert opinion, the flattering name, not unnaturally, has stuck, in spite of the fact that the government geographers have now adopted, for the Dictionary of Altitudes, the height found by the United States Geological Survey in 1902, 14,363 feet. That decision leaves the honor of being the loftiest peak between Alaska and Mexico to Mt. Whitney in the California Sierra (14,502 feet).