MOUNT "BIG SNOW" AND INDIAN TRADITION.
Long hours we toiled up through the solemn wood,
Beneath moss-banners stretched from tree to tree;
At last upon a barren hill we stood,
And, lo, above loomed Majesty.
—Herbert Bashford: "Mount Rainier."
The great Mountain fascinates us by its diversity. It is an inspiration and yet a riddle to all who are drawn to the mysterious or who love the sublime. Every view which the breaking clouds vouchsafe to us is a surprise. It never becomes commonplace, save to the commonplace.
Ice Terraces on South Tahoma Glacier. These vast steps are often seen where a glacier moves down a steep and irregular slope.
Old Virgil's gibe at mankind's better half—"varium et mutabile semper femina"—might have been written of this fickle shape of rock and ice and vapor. One tries vainly, year after year, to define it in his own mind. The daily, hourly change of distance, size and aspect, tricks which the Indian's mountain god plays with the puny creatures swarming more and more about his foot; his days of frank neighborliness, his swift transformations from smiles to anger, his fits of sullenness and withdrawal, all baffle study. Even though we live at its base, it is impossible to say we know the Mountain, so various are the spells the sun casts over this huge dome which it is slowly chiseling away with its tools of ice, and which, in coming centuries, it will level with the plain.
Mineral Lake and the Mountain. Distance, eighteen miles.