Thus Mount Rainier was discovered and named at the same time, presumably on the same day. Eighteen days later, having followed "the inlet," meaning Puget Sound, to his point of nearest approach to the mountain, Vancouver wrote:
"We found the inlet to terminate here in an extensive circular compact bay whose waters washed the base of mount Rainier, though its elevated summit was yet at a very considerable distance from the shore, with which it was connected by several ridges of hills rising towards it with gradual ascent and much regularity. The forest trees and the several shades of verdure that covered the hills gradually decreased in point of beauty until they became invisible; when the perpetual clothing of snow commenced which seemed to form a horizontal line from north to south along this range of rugged mountains, from whose summit mount Rainier rose conspicuously, and seemed as much elevated above them as they were above the level of the sea; the whole producing a most grand, picturesque effect."
Vancouver made no attempt to reach the mountain. Dreamer of great dreams though he was, how like a madhouse nightmare would have seemed to him a true prophecy of mighty engines whose like no human mind had then conceived, running upon roads of steel and asphalt at speeds which no human mind had then imagined, whirling thousands upon thousands of pleasure-seekers from the shores of that very inlet to the glistening mountain's flowered sides!
Just one century after the discovery, the Geological Society of America started the movement to make Mount Rainier a national park. Within a year the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Geographic Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the Sierra Club joined in the memorialization of Congress. Six years later, in 1899, the park was created.
II
The principal entrance to the park is up the Nisqually River at the south. Here entered the pioneer, James Longmire, many years ago, and the roads established by him and his fellows determined the direction of the first national-park development. Longmire Springs, for many years the nearest resort to the great mountain, lies just within the southern boundary. Beyond it the road follows the Nisqually and Paradise valleys, under glorious groves of pine, cedar, and hemlock, along ravines of striking beauty, past waterfalls and the snout of the Nisqually Glacier, finally to inimitable Paradise Park, its inn, its hotel camp, and its public camping-grounds. Other centres of wilderness life have been since established, and the marvellous north side of the park will be opened by the construction of a northwesterly highway up the valley of the Carbon River; already a fine trail entirely around the mountain connects these various points of development.
But the southern entrance and Paradise Park will remain for many years the principal centre of exploration and pleasuring. Here begins the popular trail to the summit. Here begin the trails to many of the finest viewpoints, the best-known falls, the most accessible of the many exquisite interglacier gardens. Here the Nisqually Glacier is reached in a few minutes' walk at a point particularly adapted for ice-climbing, and the comfortable viewing of ice-falls, crevasses, caves, and other glacier phenomena grandly exhibited in fullest beauty. It is a spot which can have in the nature of things few equals elsewhere in scenic variety and grandeur. On one side is the vast glistening mountain; on the other side the high serrated Tatoosh Range spattered with perpetual snow; in middle distance, details of long winding glaciers seamed with crevasses; in the foreground gorgeous rolling meadows of wild flowers dotted and bordered with equally luxuriant and richly varied forest groves; from close-by elevations, a gorgeous tumbled wilderness of hills, canyons, rivers, lakes, and falls backgrounded by the Cascades and accented by distant snowy peaks; the whole pervaded by the ever-present mountain, always the same yet grandly different, from different points of view, in the detail of its glaciered sides.
The variety of pleasuring is similarly very large. One can ride horseback round the mountain in a leisurely week, or spend a month or more exploring the greater wilderness of the park. One can tramp the trails on long trips, camping by the way, or vary a vacation with numerous short tramps. Or one can loaf away the days in dreamy content, with now and then a walk, and now and then a ride. Or one can explore glaciers and climb minor mountains; the Tatoosh Range alone will furnish the stiffest as well as the most delightful climbing, with wonderful rewards upon the jagged summits; while short climbs to points upon near-by snow-fields will afford coasting without sleds, an exciting sport, especially appreciated when one is young. In July, before the valley snows melt away, there is tobogganing and skiing within a short walk of the Inn.
The leisurely tour afoot around the mountain, with pack-train following the trail, is an experience never to be forgotten. One passes the snouts of a score of glaciers, each producing its river, and sees the mountain from every angle, besides having a continuous panorama of the surrounding country, including Mount Adams, Mount St. Helens, Mount Baker, Tacoma, Seattle, Mount Olympus, the Pacific Ocean, and the Cascades from the Columbia to the international line. Shorter excursions to other beautiful park-lands offer a wide variety of pleasure. Indian Henry's Hunting Ground, Van Trump Park, Summerland, and others provide charm and beauty as well as fascinating changes in the aspect of the great mountain.