The Mountain that was 'God' Part 2

Thirty snows, she said, she had awaited his return. Back they went to their {p.039} home on the bank of the Cowlitz, where he became a famous tamahnawas man, and spent the rest of his days in honor, for his tribesmen recognized that the aged Indian's heart had been marvelously softened and his mind enriched by his experience upon the peak. He had lost his love for hiaqua.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A silhouette on Pinnacle Peak, with Paradise Valley and the Nisqually Glacier below.]

Among the familiar myths of the Mountain was one of a great flood, not unlike that of Noah. I quote Miss Judson's version:

WHY THERE ARE NO SNAKES ON TAKHOMA.

A long, long time ago, Tyhce Sahale became angry with his people.

Sahale ordered a medicine man to take his bow and arrow and shoot into the cloud which hung low over Takhoma. The medicine man shot the arrow, and it stuck fast in the cloud. Then he shot another into the lower end of the first. Then he shot another into the lower end of the second. He shot arrows until he had made a chain which reached from the cloud to the earth. The medicine man told his klootchman and his children to climb up the arrow trail. Then he told the good animals to climb up the arrow trail. Then the medicine man climbed up himself. Just as he was climbing into the cloud, he looked back. A long line of bad animals and snakes were also climbing up the arrow trail. Therefore the medicine man broke the chain of arrows. Thus the snakes and bad animals fell down on the mountain side. Then at once it began to rain. It rained until all the land was flooded. Water reached even to the snow line of Takhoma. When all the bad animals and snakes were drowned, it stopped raining. After a while the waters sank again.

Then the medicine man and his klootchman and the children climbed out of the cloud and came down the mountain side. The good animals also climbed out of the cloud. Thus there are now no snakes or bad animals on Takhoma.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1897, by E. S. Curtis. Rough Climbing, an ill.u.s.tration of perils encountered in crossing the glaciers.]

Childish and fantastic as they seem to our wise age, such legends show the Northwestern Indian struggling to interpret the world about him.

Like savages everywhere, he peopled the unknown with spirits good and bad, and mingled his conception of a beneficent deity with his ideas of the evil one. Symbolism pervaded his crude but very positive mind.

Ever by his side the old Siwash felt the Power that dwelt on Tacoma, protecting and aiding him, or leading him to destruction. Knowing {p.040} nothing of true wors.h.i.+p, his primitive intelligence could imagine G.o.d only in things either the most beautiful or the most terrifying; and the more we know the Mountain, the more easily we shall understand why he deemed the majestic peak a factor of his destiny--an infinite force that could, at will, bless or destroy. For to us, too, though we have no illusions as to its supernatural powers, the majestic peak may bring a message. Before me is a letter from an inspiring New England writer, who has well earned the right to appraise life's values. "I saw the great Mountain three years ago,"

she says; "would that it might ever be my lot to see it again! I love to dream of its glory, and its vast whiteness is a moral force in my life."

Perpetual And snowy tabernacle of the land, While purples at thy base this peaceful sea, And all thy hither slopes in evening bathe, I hear soft twilight voices calling down From all thy summits unto prayer and love.

--_Francis Brooks: "Mt. Rainier."_

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ptarmigan, the Grouse of the ice-fields. Unlike its neighbor, the Mountain Goat, this bird is tame, and may sometimes be caught by hand. In winter its plumage turns from brown to white.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mountain, seen from Puyallup River, near Tacoma.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.041}: Falls of the Little Mash.e.l.l River, near Eatonville and the road to the Mountain.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.042}: Old Stage Road to Longmire Springs and the National Park Inn, showing the tall, clear trunks of the giant firs.]

{p.043} [Ill.u.s.tration: On Pierce County's splendid scenic road to the Mountain. Pa.s.sing Ohop Valley.]

II.

THE NATIONAL PARK, ITS ROADS AND ITS NEEDS.

There are plenty of higher mountains, but it is the decided isolation--the absolute standing alone in full majesty of its own mightiness--that forms the attraction of Rainier. * * * It is no squatting giant, perched on the shoulders of other mountains.

From Puget Sound, it is a sight for the G.o.ds, and one feels in the presence of the G.o.ds.--_Paul Fountain: "The Seven Eaglets of the West"_ (London, 1905).

The first explorers to climb the Mountain, forty years ago, were compelled to make their way from Puget Sound through the dense growths of one of the world's greatest forests, over lofty ridges and deep canyons, and across perilous glacial torrents. The hards.h.i.+ps of a journey to the timber line were more formidable than the difficulties encountered above it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cowlitz Chimneys, seen from basin below Frying-Pan Glacier.]

Even from the East the first railroad to the Coast had just reached San Francisco. Thence the traveler came north to the Sound by boat.

The now busy cities of Seattle and Tacoma were, one, an ambitious village of 1,107 inhabitants; the other, a sawmill, with seventy persons living around it. They were frontier settlements, outposts of {p.044} civilization; but civilization paid little attention to them and their great Mountain, until the railways, some years later, began to connect them with the big world of people and markets beyond the Rockies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the way out from Tacoma, over the partly wooded prairie, the automobilist sees many scenes like this old road near Spanaway Lake.]

How different the case to-day! Six transcontinental railroads now deliver their trains in the Puget Sound cities. These are: The Northern Pacific, which was the first trunk line to reach the Sound; the Great Northern; the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy; the Chicago, Milwaukee & Puget Sound; the Oregon-Was.h.i.+ngton (Union Pacific), and the Canadian Pacific. A seventh, the North Coast, is planned.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.046}: View Northward from top of Pinnacle Peak in the Tatoosh range to Paradise Valley, Nisqually Glacier and Gibraltar Rock, eight miles away.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.047}: Looking Northeast from slope of Pinnacle Peak, across Paradise, Stevens, Cowlitz and Frying Pan Glaciers. These two views form virtually a panorama.]

Arriving in Seattle or Tacoma, the traveler has his choice of quick and enjoyable routes to the Mountain. He may go by automobile, leaving either city in the morning. After traveling one of the best and most interesting roads in the country--the only one, in fact, to reach a glacier--he may take luncheon at noon six thousand feet higher, in Paradise Park, overlooking great glaciers and close to the line of eternal snow. Or he may go by the comfortable trains of the Tacoma Eastern (Milwaukee system) to Ashford, fifty-five miles from Tacoma, and then by automobile stages, over a picturesque portion of the fine highway just mentioned, to the National Park Inn at Longmire Springs (alt.i.tude 2,762 feet). Lunching there, he may then go on, by coach over the new government road, or on horseback over one of the most inviting mountain trails in America, or afoot, as many prefer. Thus he {p.049} gains Paradise Park and its far-reaching observation point, Camp of the Clouds (elevation, 5,800 feet). From the Inn, too, another romantic bridle path leads to Indian Henry's famous Hunting Ground, equally convenient as a base of adventure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Automobile Party above Nisqually Canyon, Pierce County Road to the Mountain.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prof. O. D. Allen's cottage, in the Forest Reserve, where the former Yale professor has for years studied the flora of the Mountain.]

Whether the visitor goes to the Mountain by train or by automobile, his choice will be a happy one. For either route leads through a country of uncommon charm. Each of them, too, will carry the visitor up from the Sound to the great and beautiful region on the southern slopes which includes the Tahoma, Kautz, Nisqually, Paradise and Stevens canyons, with their glaciers and the wonderful upland plateaus or "parks" that lie between.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ghost Trees" in Indian Henry's. These white stalks tell of fires set by careless visitors.]

Here let him stay a day or a month. Every moment of his time will be crowded with new experiences and packed with enjoyment. For here is sport to last for many months. He may content himself with a day spent in coasting down a steep snow-field in midsummer, s...o...b..lling his companions, and climbing Alta Vista to look down on the big Nisqually glacier in the deep bed which it has {p.050} carved for itself, and up its steep slopes to its neve field on the summit. Or he may explore this whole region at his leisure. He may climb the hard mountain trails that radiate from Longmires and Paradise. He may work up over the lower glaciers, studying their creva.s.ses, ice caves and flow. He will want to ascend some of the tempting crags of the ragged Tatoosh, for the panorama of ice-capped peaks and dark, forested ranges which is there unfolded. After a week or two of such "trying-out," to develop wind and harden muscle, he may even scale the great Mountain itself under the safe lead of experienced guides. He may wander at will over the vast platform left by a prehistoric explosion which truncated the cone, and perhaps spend a night of sensational novelty (and discomfort) in a big steam cave, under the snow, inside a dead crater.

The south side has the advantage of offering the wildest alpine sport in combination with a well-appointed hotel as a base of operations.

Hence the majority of visitors know only that side. Everybody should know it, too, for there is not a n.o.bler playground anywhere; but should also know that it is by no means the only side to see.

One may, of course, work around from the Nisqually canyon and Paradise, east or west, to the other glaciers and "parks." It is quite practicable, if not easy, to make the trip eastward from Camp of the Clouds, crossing Paradise, Stevens and Cowlitz glaciers, and thus to reach the huge White glacier on the east side and Winthrop and Carbon glaciers on the north. Every summer sees more and more visitors making this wonderful journey.

But the usual way to reach the great north side, especially for parties which carry camp equipment, is by a Northern Pacific train over the Carbonado branch to Fairfax. This is on Carbon river, five miles from the northwest corner of the National Park. Thence the traveler will go by horse or afoot, over a safe mountain trail, to Spray Park, the fascinating region between Carbon and North Mowich {p.051} glaciers. Standing here, on such an eminence as Fay Peak or Eagle Cliff, he may have views of the Mountain in its finest aspects that will a thousand times repay the labor of attainment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Government Road in the Forest Reserve.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Hanging Glacier," or ice fall, above Cowlitz Glacier.]

A visit to this less known but no less interesting side involves the necessity of packing an outfit. But arrangements for horses and packers are easily made, and each year an increasing number of parties make Spray Park their headquarters, spending, if they are wise, at least a week in this wide region of flowering alpine valleys and commanding heights. From there they go south, over the west-side glaciers, or east, across the Carbon and through the great White river country. They camp on the south side of the Sluiskin mountains, in Moraine Park, and there have ready access to Carbon and Winthrop glaciers, with splendid views of the vast precipices that form the north face of the Mountain. Thence they climb east and south over the Winthrop and White glaciers. They visit the beautiful Grand Park and Summerland, and either make the ascent to the summit from "Steamboat Prow" on the "Wedge," over the long ice slope of the White glacier, or continue around to the Paradise country and Longmire Springs.

{p.052} [Ill.u.s.tration: Leaving the National Park Inn at Longmire Springs for Paradise Park.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. On the Summit, showing Columbia's Crest, the great mound of snow that has, most curiously, formed on this wide, wind-swept platform. This, the actual top of the Mountain, is 14,363 feet above sea level.]

The west side has been less visited than the others, but there is a trail from the North Mowich to the Nisqually, and from this adventurous explorers reach North and South Mowich and Puyallup glaciers. No one has yet climbed the Mountain over those glaciers, or from the north side. A view from any of the trails will explain why.

The great rock spines are more precipitous than elsewhere, the glaciers more broken; and the summit is fronted on either side by a huge parapet of rock which hurls defiance at anything short of an airs.h.i.+p. Doubtless, we shall some day travel to Crater Peak by aeroplanes, but until these vehicles are equipped with {p.054} runners for landing and starting on the snow, we shall do best to plan our ascents from the south or east side.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.053}: Paradise Valley or "Park," and Tatoosh Mountains, from slope below Paradise Glacier. The highest of the peaks are about 7,000 feet above sea level and 1,700 feet above the floor of the valley.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Government Road a mile above Longmires, bound for the Nisqually Glacier.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Near "Gap Point," where the road turns from the Nisqually canyon into that of Paradise River.]

I have thus briefly pointed out the favorite routes followed in exploring the National Park. The time is fast approaching when it will be a truly national recreation ground, well known to Americans in every State. The coming of new railways to Puget Sound and the development of new facilities for reaching the Mountain make this certain.[3]

[Footnote 3: For details as to rates for transportation, accommodations and guides, with the rules governing the National Park, see the notes at end of the book.]