Going to the summit by this route, the important thing is to pass Gibraltar early, before the sun starts the daily shower of icicles and rocks from the cliff over the narrow trail (see p. [83]). This is the most dangerous point, but no lives have been lost here. Everywhere, of course, caution is needed, and strict obedience to the guide. Once up the steep flume caused by the melting of the ice where it borders the rock (p. [85]), the climber threads his way among the crevasses and snow-mounds for nearly two miles, until the crater is reached (pp. [86], [88], [89]).
Coasting in Moraine Park in the August sunshine.
The east-side route (p. [100]) involves less danger, perhaps, but it is a longer climb, with no resting places or wind-breaks. It has been used less, because it is farther from Paradise Valley. Starting from a night's encampment on the Wedge (p. [97]), parties descend to White glacier, and, over its steep incline of dazzling ice, gain the summit in eight or nine hours.
Sunset on Crater Lake, north of Spray Park, with the Mountain in distance.
The first attempt to scale the Mountain was made in 1857 by Lieutenant (later General) A. V. Kautz. There is no foundation for the claim sometimes heard that Dr. W. F. Tolmie, Hudson's Bay Company agent at Fort Nisqually, who made a botanizing trip to the lower slopes in 1833, attempted the peak. Lieutenant Kautz, with two companions from fort Steilacoom, climbed the arête between the glacier now named after him and the Nisqually glacier, but fearing a night on the summit, and knowing nothing of the steam caves in the crater, he turned back when probably at the crest of the south peak. Writing in the Overland Monthly for May, 1875, he says that, "although there were points higher yet, the Mountain spread out comparatively flat," having the form of "a ridge perhaps two miles in length, with an angle about half-way, and depressions between the angle and each end of the ridge, which gave the summit the appearance of three small peaks."