Our route back was the same as on the ascent. At the steepest and most perilous point in descending the steep gutter where we had been forced to cut steps in the ice, we fastened one end of the rope as securely as possible to a projecting rock, and lowered ourselves down by it as far as it reached, thereby passing the place with comparative safety. We were forced to abandon the rope here, having no means of unfastening it from the rock above. We reached the foot of the rocky ledge or ridge, where the real difficulties and dangers of the ascent commenced, at 1.30 p.m., four and a half hours after leaving the crater. We had been seven and a half hours in ascending from this point to the summit of Peak Success, and in both cases we toiled hard and lost no time.
We now struck out rapidly and joyfully for camp. When nearly there Van Trump, in attempting to descend a snowbank without his creepers, which he had taken off for greater ease in walking, fell, shot like lightning forty feet down the steep incline, and struck among some loose rocks at its foot with such force as to rebound several feet into the air; his face and hands were badly skinned, and he received some severe bruises and a deep, wide gash upon his thigh. Fortunately the camp was not far distant, and thither with great pain and very slowly he managed to hobble. Once there I soon started a blazing fire, made coffee, and roasted choice morsels of a marmot, Sluiskin having killed and dressed four of these animals during our absence. Their flesh, like the badger's, is extremely muscular and tough, and has a strong, disagreeable, doggy odor.
Towards the close of our repast, we observed the Indian approaching with his head down, and walking slowly and wearily as though tired by a long tramp. He raised his head as he came nearer, and, seeing us for the first time, stopped short, gazed long and fixedly, and then slowly drew near, eying us closely the while, as if to see whether we were real flesh and blood or disembodied ghosts fresh from the evil demon of Takhoma. He seemed both astonished and delighted to find us safe back, and kept repeating that we were strong men and had brave hearts: "Skookum tilicum, skookum tumtum." He expected never to see us again, he said, and had resolved to start the next morning for Olympia to report our destruction.
The weather was still raw and cold. A dense cloud overhung and shrouded the triple crown of Takhoma and made us rejoice at our timely descent. The scanty shelter afforded by the few balsam firs about our camp had been destroyed by the fire, and the situation was terribly exposed to the chilly and piercing wind that blew from the great ice-fields. Van Trump, however, was too badly hurt to think of moving that night. Heating some large stones we placed them at our feet, and closely wrapped in our blankets slept soundly upon the open ground, although we awoke in the morning benumbed and chilled.
We found many fresh tracks and signs of the mountain-sheep upon the snowfields, and hair and wool rubbed off upon rocks, and places where they had lain at night. The mountain-sheep of Takhoma is much larger than the common goat, and is found only upon the loftiest and most secluded peaks of the Cascade Range. Even Sluiskin, a skillful hunter and accustomed to the pursuit of this animal for years, failed to kill one, notwithstanding he hunted assiduously during our entire stay upon the mountain, three days. Sluiskin was greatly chagrined at his failure, and promised to bring each of us a sheep-skin the following summer, a promise which he faithfully fulfilled.
The glacial system of Takhoma is stupendous. The mountain is really the focal centre and summit of a region larger than Massachusetts, and the five large rivers which water this region all find their sources in its vast glaciers. They are the Cowlitz, which empties into the Columbia; the White, Puyallup, and Nisqually rivers, which empty into Puget Sound sixty, forty, and twelve miles respectively north of Olympia; and the Wenass, which flows eastward through the range and empties into the Yakima, which joins the Columbia four hundred miles above its mouth. These are all large streams from seventy to a hundred miles in length. The White, Puyallup, and Cowlitz rivers are each navigable for steamboats for some thirty miles, and like the Nisqually show their glacial origin by their white and turgid water, which indeed gives the former its name.
The southwestern sides of the mountain furnish the glaciers which form the sources of the Nisqually, and one of these, at Sluiskin's Falls, has been already described. The main Nisqually glacier issues from the deep abyss overhung by the vast rock along the face of which our route of ascent lay, and extends in a narrow and somewhat crooked canyon for two miles. The ice at its extremity rises in an abrupt wall five hundred feet high, and a noisy torrent pours out with great force from beneath. This feature is characteristic of every glacier. The main Cowlitz glacier issues from the southeast side, just to the right of our ridge of ascent. Its head fills a deep gorge at the foot of the eastern front or face of the great mass of rock just referred to, and the southern face of which overhangs the main Nisqually glacier. Thus the heads of these glaciers are separated only by this great rock, and are probably not more than half a mile apart, while their mouths are three miles apart. Several smaller glaciers serve to swell the waters of the Cowlitz. In like manner the glaciers from the western side form the Puyallup, and those from the northern and northwestern sides the White River. The principal White River glacier is nearly ten miles long, and its width is from two to four miles. Its depth, or the thickness of its ice, must be thousands of feet. Streams and rivulets under the heat of the sun flow down its surface until swallowed by the crevasses, and a lakelet of deep blue water an eighth of a mile in diameter has been observed upon the solid ice. Pouring down from the mountain, the ice by its immense weight and force has gouged out a mass upon the northeastern side a mile in thickness. The geological formation of Takhoma poorly resists the eroding power of these mighty glaciers, for it seems to be composed not of solid rock, but of a basaltic conglomerate in strata, as though the volcanic force had burst through and rent in pieces some earlier basaltic outflow, and had heaped up this vast pile from the fragments in successive strata. On every side the mountain is slowly disintegrating.
What other peak can offer to scientific examination or to the admiration of tourists fourteen living glaciers of such magnitude, issuing from every side, or such grandeur, beauty, and variety of scenery?
At daylight we broke up our camp at Sluiskin's Falls, and moved slowly, on account of Van Trump's hurt, down the ridge about five miles to Clear Creek, where we again regaled ourselves upon a hearty repast of marmots, or "raw dog," as Van Trump styled them in derision both of the viand and of the cookery. I was convinced from the lay of the country that Clear Creek flowed into the Nisqually, or was, perhaps, the main stream itself, and that the most direct and feasible route back to Bear Prairie would be found by following down the valley of these streams to the trail leading from the Nisqually to Bear Prairie. Besides, it was evidently impossible for Van Trump, in his bruised and injured state, to retrace our rough route over the mountains. Leaving him as comfortable as possible, with all our scanty stock of flour and marmots, sufficient to last him nearly a week in case of need, I started immediately after dinner, with Sluiskin leading the way, to explore this new route. The Indian had opposed the attempt strenuously, insisting with much urgency that the stream flowed through canyons impossible for us to traverse. He now gradually veered away from the course of the stream, until ere-long he was leading directly up the steep mountain range upon our former route, when I called him back peremptorily, and kept him in the rear for a little distance. Traveling through open timber, over ground rapidly descending, we came at the end of two miles to where the stream is hemmed in between one of the long ridges or spurs from Takhoma and the high mountain-chain on the south. The stream, receiving many affluents on both sides, its clear waters soon discolored by the yeasty glacial torrents, here loses its peaceful flow, and for upwards of three miles rushes furiously down a narrow, broken, and rocky bed in a succession of falls and cascades of great picturesque beauty. With much toil and difficulty we picked our way over a wide "talus" of huge, broken granite blocks and bowlders, along the foot of a vast mountain of solid granite on the south side of the river, until near the end of the defile, then crossed the stream, and soon after encountered a still larger branch coming from the north, direct from Takhoma, the product, doubtless, of the glaciers on the southern and southwestern sides. Fording this branch just above its confluence with the other, we followed the general course of the river, now unmistakably the Nisqually, for about four miles; then, leaving it, we struck off nearly south through the forest for three miles, and emerged upon the Bear Prairie. The distance was about thirteen miles from where we left Van Trump, and we were only some six hours in traveling it, while it took seventeen hours of terribly severe work to make the mountain-route under Sluiskin's guidance.
Without his help on the shorter route, too, it would have taken me more than twice the time it did. For the manner in which, after entering the defile of the Nisqually, Sluiskin again took the lead and proceeded in a direct and unhesitating course, securing every advantage of the ground, availing himself of the wide, rocky bars along the river, crossing and recrossing the milky flood which rushed along with terrific swiftness and fury, and occasionally forcing his way through the thick timber and underbrush in order to cut off wide bends of the river, and at length leaving it and striking boldly through the forest to Bear Prairie, proved him familiar with every foot of the country. His objections to the route evidently arose from the jealousy so common with his people of further exploration of the country by the whites. As long as they keep within the limits already known and explored, they are faithful and indefatigable guides, but they invariably interpose every obstacle their ingenuity can suggest to deter the adventurous mountaineer from exposing the few last hidden recesses that remain unexplored.