Amphitheatre of Carbon Glacier, the most noteworthy example of glacial sculpture upon the Mountain. It is nearly three miles wide. No other glacier has cut so deeply into the side of the peak. The Carbon was once two glaciers, separated by a ridge, of which a remnant is still seen in the huge spine of rock extending down from Liberty Cap.
Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis.
Avalanche falling on Willis Wall, at head of Carbon Glacier amphitheatre. The cliff, up to the snow cap on the summit, is more than 4,000 feet high and nearly perpendicular. Avalanches fall every day, but this picture of a big one in action is probably unique. Willis Wall was named for Bailey Willis, the geologist.
Photo By Lea Bronson. Copyright, 1909, By P. V. Caesar.
Birth of Carbon River, with part of Willis Wall visible in distance. The great height of this ice front appears on nothing the man near the river.
Copyright, 1909, By A. H. WAITE.
It was not until August 17, 1870, thirteen years after Kautz's partial victory, that the Mountain was really conquered. This was by P. B. Van Trump of Yelm and Hazard Stevens, son of the first governor of Washington, who had distinguished himself in the Civil War, and was then living at Olympia as a Federal revenue officer. Each of these pioneers on the summit has published an interesting account of how they got there, General Stevens in the Atlantic Monthly for November, 1876, and Mr. Van Trump in the second volume of Mazama. In Stevens's article, "The Ascent of Takhoma," his acquaintance with the Indians of the early territorial period, gives weight to this note:
Tak-ho-ma or Ta-ho-ma among the Yakimas, Klickitats, Puyallups, Nisquallys and allied tribes is the generic term for mountain, used precisely as we use the word "Mount," as Takhoma Wynatchie, or Mount Wynatchie. But they all designate Rainier simply as Takhoma, or The Mountain, just as the mountain men used to call it "Old He."