From New Tacoma the entire course of the Puyallup and part of Carbon River are in view. Across Commencement Bay are the tide marshes of the delta; back from these salt meadows the light green of the cottonwoods, alder and vine-maple mark the river's course, till it is lost in the dark monotone of the fir forest. No break in the evergreen surface indicates the place of the river cañons; but far out among the foot-hills a line of mist hangs over the upper valley of Carbon River, which winds away eastward, behind the rising ground, to the northern side of Mount Tacoma. Milk Creek, one of its branches, drains the northwest spur, and on the western slope the snows accumulate in two glaciers, from which flow the North and South Forks of the Puyallup. These streams meet in a level valley at the base of three singular peaks, and plunge united into the dark gateway of the cañon.
A trip to the grand snow peak from which these rivers spring was within a year a very difficult undertaking. There was no trail through the dense forest, no supply depot on the route. No horse nor donkey could accompany the explorer, who took his blankets and provisions on his back, and worked his way slowly among the towering tree trunks, through underbrush luxuriant as a tropic jungle. But last summer a good horse trail was built from Wilkeson to Carbon River, crossing it above the cañon, sixteen miles below the glacier, and during the autumn it was extended to the head of the Puyallup. Wilkeson is reached by a branch railroad from New Tacoma. It is on a small tributary of Carbon River, called Fletts Creek, at a point where the brook runs from a narrow gorge into a valley about a quarter of a mile wide. Coal mines are opened at this point. The horse trail climbs at once from Wilkeson to the first terrace, four hundred feet above the valley; then winds a quarter of a mile back through the forest to the second ascent of a hundred feet, and then a mile over the level to the third. Hidden here beneath the thick covering of moss and undergrowth of the primeval forest, fourteen hundred feet above the present ocean level, are ancient shore lines of the sea, which has left its trace in similar terraces in all the valleys about the Sound. [23] Thence the trail extends southward over a level plateau. Carbon River Cañon is but half a mile away on the west, and five miles from Wilkeson the valley above the cañon is reached. The descent to the river is over three miles along the hillside eastward.
From Wilkeson to the river the way is all through a belt of forest, where the conditions of growth are very favorable. The fir trees are massive, straight and free from limbs to a great height. The larger ones, eight to twelve feet in diameter on a level with a man's head, carry their size upward, tapering very gradually, till near the top they shoot out a thick mat of foliage and the trunk in a few feet diminishes to a point. One such was measured; it stands like a huge obelisk 180 feet, without a limb, supporting a crown of but forty feet more. The more slender trees are, curiously enough, the taller; straight, clear shafts rise 100 to 150 feet, topped with foliage whose highest needles would look down on Trinity spire. Cedars, hemlocks, spruce and white fir mingle with these giants, but they do not compete with them in height; they fill in the spaces in the vast colonnades. Below is the carpet of deep golden green moss and glossy ferns, and the tangle of vines and bushes that cover the fallen trunks of the fathers of the forest.
The silence of these mountains is awesome, the solitude oppressive. The deer, the bear, the panther are seldom met; they see and hear first and silently slip away, leaving only their tracks to prove their numbers. There are very few birds. Blue jays, and their less showy gray, but equally impudent, cousins, the "whiskey jacks," assemble about a camp; but in passing through the forest one may wander a whole day and see no living thing save a squirrel, whose shrill chatter is startling amid the silence. The wind plays in the tree tops far overhead, but seldom stirs the branches of the smaller growth. The great tree trunks stand immovable. The more awful is it when a gale roars through the timber; when the huge columns sway in unison and groan with voices strangely human. It is fearful to lie in the utter darkness of a stormy night, listening to the pulsating rush of the wind, the moan of the forest and the crash of uprooted giants upon the ground—listening with bated breath for the report which may foretell the fall of yonder tall decaying shaft, whose thick, deep cleft bark blazed so brightly on the now dying camp fire. The effect of one such storm is seen in Carbon River Valley, above and below where the trail crosses. The blast followed the stream and the mountain slope on the south side; over an area eight miles long and a half a mile to a mile wide the forest is prostrate. Single trees stand gaunt and charred by a recent fire, but their comrades are piled like jackstraws, the toys of the tornado. Over and under each other they lie, bent and interlaced, twenty, thirty feet deep. Pigmy man strained his eyes to see their tops, when they stood erect; now he vainly stands on tiptoe to look over them in their fallen majesty.
To the head of Carbon River from the bridge, on which the trail crosses it, is about sixteen miles. The rocky bed of the river is 100 to 200 yards wide, a gray strip of polished boulders between sombre mountain slopes, that rise sharply from it. The stream winds in ever-shifting channels among the stones. About six miles above the bridge Milk Creek dashes down from its narrow gorge into the river. The high pinnacles of the spur from which it springs are hidden by the nearer fir-clad ridges. Between their outlines shines the northern peak of Mount Tacoma, framed in dark evergreen spires. Its snow fields are only three miles distant, but Carbon River has come a long way round. For six miles eastward the undulating lines of the mountains converge, then those on the north suddenly cross the view, where the river cañon turns sharply southward.
Three miles from this turn is Crescent Mountain, its summit a semi-circular gray wall a thousand feet high. [24] At sunset the light from the west streams across the head of Milk Creek and Carbon River, illuminating these cliffs as with the glow of volcanic fires, while twilight deepens in the valley. The next turn of the river brings Mount Tacoma again in view. Close on the right a huge buttress towers up, cliff upon cliff, 2,500 feet, a single one of the many imposing rock masses that form the Ragged Spur between Carbon River and Milk Creek. The more rapid fall of the river, the increasing size of the boulders, show the nearness of the glacier. Turning eastward to the south of Crescent Mountain, you pass the group of trees that hide it.
This first sight is a disappointment. The glacier is a very dirty one. The face is about 300 feet long and thirty to forty feet high. It entirely fills the space between two low cliffs of polished gray rock. Throughout the mass the snows of successive winters are interstratified with the summers' accumulations of earth and rock. From a dark cavern, whose depths have none of the intense blue color so beautiful in crevasses in clear ice, Carbon River pours out, a muddy torrent. The top of the glacier is covered with earth about six inches deep, contributed to its mass by the cliffs on either side and by an island of rock, where a few pines grow, entirely surrounded by the ice river. The eye willingly passes over this dirty mass to the gleaming northeast spur of the mountain, where the sunlight lingers after the chill night wind has begun to blow from the ice fields.
The disappointment of this view of the glacier leaves one unprepared for the beauty of that from Crescent Mountain. The ascent from a point a short distance down the river is steep, but not dangerous. The lower slopes are heavily timbered, but at an elevation of 4,000 feet juniper and dwarf pine are dotted over the grassy hillside. Elk, deer and white mountain goats find here a pleasant pasture; their trails look like well trodden sheep paths on a New England hill. A curious badger-like animal, sitting erect on his hind legs, greets one with a long shrill whistle that would make a schoolboy envious, but trots quickly away on nearer approach. The crest of the southwest rim of the amphitheater is easily gained, and the grandeur of the view bursts upon you suddenly. Eastward are the cliffs and cañons of the Cascade Range. Northward forest-covered hill and valley reach to Mount Baker and the snow peaks that break the horizon line. Westward are the blue waters of the Sound, the snow-clad Olympics and a faint soft line beyond; it may be the ocean or a fog bank above it. Southward, 9,000 feet above you, so near you must throw your head back to see its summit, is grand Mount Tacoma; its graceful northern peak piercing the sky, it soars single and alone. Whether touched by the glow of early morning or gleaming in bright noonday, whether rosy with sunset light or glimmering ghost-like, in the full moon, whether standing out clear and cloudless or veiled among the mists it weaves from the warm south winds, it is always majestic and inspiring, always attractive and lovely. It is the symbol of an awful power clad in beauty.
This northern slope of the mountain is very steep, and the consolidated snow begins its downward movement from near the top. Little pinnacles of rock project through the mass and form eddies in the current. A jagged ridge divides it, and part descends into the deep unexplored cañon of White River, probably the deepest chasm in the flanks of Mount Tacoma. The other part comes straight on toward the southern side of Crescent Mountain, a precipice 2,000 feet high; diverted, it turns in graceful flowing curves, breaks into a thousand ice pyramids and descends into the narrow pass, where its beauty is hidden under the ever-falling showers of rock.