The Mountain that was 'God' Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: Snout of Nisqually Glacier, with the river which it feeds. Though much shrunken since the epoch when it filled the whole canyon, the glacier is still a vast river of ice; and its front, seen several hundred yards above the bridge, rises sheer 500 feet. The new road to Narada Falls and Paradise Park crosses the Nisqually here.

Automobiles are not permitted to go above this point.]

Every step taken for the conservation of the natural beauty of the Park and its opening to proper use and enjoyment is a public benefit.

Outside the national reserves, our lumbermen are fast destroying the forests; but, if properly guarded against fire, the great Park forest will still teach future generations how lavishly Nature plants, just as the delightful glacial valleys and towering landmarks teach how powerful and artistic a sculptor she is. Experienced travelers and alpinists {p.055} who have visited the Mountain unite in declaring its scenery, combining as it does great vistas of ice with vast stretches of n.o.ble forest, to be unequaled elsewhere in America, and unsurpa.s.sed anywhere. In the fascination of its glacial story, as well as in the grandeur of its features, it has few rivals among the great peaks of the world. The geologist, the botanist, the weary business man, the sportsman, all find it calling them to study, to rest, or to strenuous and profitable recreation. Here is a resource more lasting than our timber. When the loggers shall have left us only naked ranges, without the reserves, the Park may yield a crop more valuable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pony bridge over the Nisqually, on trail to Paradise.

Note the granite boulders which the stream has rounded in rolling them down from the glacier.]

*[Ill.u.s.tration: The road a mile above the bridge, overlooking Nisqually Canyon and Glacier.]

*[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Pony Trail to Paradise. This trail winds through the dense forest above Longmires, crosses the Nisqually, and then follows Paradise River, with its miles of picturesque cascades.

It is one of the most beautiful mountain paths in America.]

Until recent years this was known only to the hardy few who delight in doing difficult things for great rewards. But that day of isolation has pa.s.sed. The value of the Park to the whole American people is more {p.056} and more appreciated by them, if not yet by their official representatives. While Congress has dealt less liberally with this than with the other great National Parks, what it has appropriated has been well spent in building an invaluable road, which opens one of the most important upland regions to public knowledge and use. This road is a continuation of the well-made highway maintained by Pierce County from Tacoma, which pa.s.ses through an attractive country of partly wooded prairies and follows the picturesque Nisqually valley up the heavily forested slopes to the Forest Reserve and the southwestern corner of the Park. The public has been quick to seize the opportunity which the roads offered. The number of persons entering the Park, as shown by the annual reports of the Superintendent, has grown {p.057} from 1,786 in 1906 to more than 8,000 in 1910. In the same period, the Yellowstone National Park, with its greater age, its wider advertising, its many hotels, its abundance of government money, increased its total of visitors from 17,182 to 19,575.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sierra Club lunching on Nisqually Glacier. The huge ice wall in the distance is the west branch of the Nisqually, and is sometimes miscalled "Stevens Glacier." As seen here, it forms a "hanging glacier," which empties into the main glacier over the cliff.]

For one thing, these roads have put it within the power of automobilists from all parts of the Coast to reach the grandest of American mountains and the largest glaciers of the United States south of Alaska. They connect at Tacoma, with excellent roads from Seattle and other cities on the Sound, as well as from Portland and points farther south. The travel from these cities has already justified the construction of the roads, and is increasing every year. Even from California many automobile parties visit the Mountain. The railway travel is also fast increasing, and the opening this year of its transcontinental service by the Milwaukee Railway, which owns the Tacoma Eastern line to Ashford, is likely soon to double the number of those who journey to the Mountain by rail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Mountain Celery.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Narada Falls, 185 feet, on Paradise River (alt.i.tude, 4,572 feet). Both trail and road pa.s.s it. "Narada" is an East Indian word meaning "peace." The name was given many years ago by a party of Theosophists who visited the falls. Happily, the effort to change the name to "Cushman Falls" has failed.]

The new government road to Paradise and the trails {p.058} connecting with it have, however made only a fraction of the Park accessible. The most important work for the conservation of this great alpine area and its opening to the public still remains to be done.

Congress is now asked to provide funds for the survey and gradual extension of the road to the other plateaus on all sides of the peak.

Pending the construction of the road, it is highly important that, as soon as the surveys can be made, bridle trails be built on the easy grades thus established. Not only are these roads and trails much needed for the convenience of visitors to the Mountain, but, with the closer approach of logging operations, they are year by year becoming more necessary to the proper policing of the Park and its protection against forest fires. For want of them, great sections of forest within the Park are liable to be swept away at any time, before the rangers could find their way over the scant and broken trails now existing. The request for better access to the other sides of the Mountain has received the earnest indors.e.m.e.nt of the Was.h.i.+ngton legislature, the commercial organizations of the entire Coast, and the several mountain clubs in different parts of the country. Only Congress remains blind to its importance.

Congressional action affecting this immediate area began in 1899. A tract eighteen miles square, 207,360 acres, to be known as "Ranier National Park,"[4] was {p.059} withdrawn from the 2,146,600 acres of the Pacific Forest Reserve, previously created. The area thus set apart as "a public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people"

(Act of March 2, 1899) was already known to a few enthusiasts and explorers as one of the world's great wonderlands. In 1861 James Longmire, a prospector, had built a trail from Yelm over Mash.e.l.l mountain and up the Nisqually river to Bear Prairie. This he extended in 1884 to the spot now known as Longmire Springs, and thence up the Nisqually and Paradise rivers to the region now called Paradise Park.

Part of this trail was widened later into a wagon road, used for many years by persons seeking health at the remarkable mineral springs on the tract which the Longmires acquired from the government before the establishment of the Forest Reserve.

[Footnote 4: For some years, Congress and the Interior Department spelled it "Ranier"! A well-known Congressman from Seattle corrected their spelling of the name of the forgotten admiral, and it has since been officially "Rainier National Park."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Was.h.i.+ngton Torrents, on Paradise River; a series of falls a mile in length, seen from the new road to Paradise and still better from the pony trail.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portion of Paradise Park and the Tatoosh Range.]

The Longmire road, rough as it was, long remained the best route; but in 1903 the Mountain found a tireless friend in the late Francis W.

Cushman, representative from this State, who persuaded Congress to authorize the survey and construction of a better highway. Work was not begun, however, until 1906. The {p.061} yearly appropriations have been small, and total only $240,000 for surveys, construction and maintenance, to the end of the last session.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.060}: View from north side of the Tatoosh. 1. Crater Peak. 2. South Peak, or Peak Success. 3. Nisqually Glacier, with feeders. 4. Gibraltar Rock. 5. Camp Muir, on Cowlitz Cleaver. 6.

Cathedral Rocks. 7. Little Tahoma. 8. Paradise Glacier. 9. Alta Vista.

10. Camp of the Clouds. 11. Reese's Camp. 12. Sluiskin Falls. 13.

Paradise River and Valley. 14. Mazama Ridge. 15. Reflection Lake. 16.

Van Trump Glacier. 17. Von Trump Park. 18. Kautz Glacier. 19.

Pyramid Peak. 20. Tahoma Glaciers. 21. Indian Henry's. Dotted line shows South-side route to the summit.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ice Bridge, Stevens Glacier.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mountain Sports. Tug of War between teams picked from the feminine contingent of the Mountaineers.]

The road, as now open to Paradise valley, is a monument to the engineering skill of Mr. Eugene Ricksecker, United States a.s.sistant Engineer, in local charge of the work. Over its even floor you go from the west boundary of the Forest Reserve up the north bank of the Nisqually river, as far as the foot of its glacier. Crossing on the bridge here, you climb up and up, around the face of a bluff known as Gap Point, where a step over the retaining wall would mean a sheer drop of a thousand feet into the river below. Thus you wind over to the Paradise river and famous Narada Falls, switch back up the side of the deep Paradise canyon to the beautiful valley of the same name above, and, still climbing, reach Camp of the Clouds and its picturesque tent hotel. The road has brought you a zigzag journey of twenty-five miles to cover an air-line distance of twelve and a gain in elevation of 3,600 feet. It is probably unique in its grades. It has no descents. Almost everywhere it is a gentle climb. {p.062} Below Longmire Springs the maximum grade is 2.5 per cent., and the average, 1.6 per cent. Beyond, the grade is steeper, but nowhere more than 4 per cent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer. Tatoosh Mountains and Paradise Park in Winter.]

The alignment and grades originally planned have been followed, but for want of funds only one stretch, a mile and a quarter, has yet been widened to the standard width of eighteen feet. Lacking money for a broader road, the engineers built the rest of it twelve feet wide.

They wisely believed that early opening of the route for vehicles to Paradise, even though the road be less than standard width, would serve the public by making the Park better known, and thus arouse interest in making it still more accessible. It will require about $60,000 to complete the road to full width, and render it thoroughly secure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer.

Hiking through Paradise in Winter.]

Of still greater importance, however, to the safety of the Park and its opening to public use is the carrying out of Mr. Ricksecker's fine plan for a road around the Mountain. His new map of the Park, printed at the end of this volume, shows the route proposed. Leaving the present road near Christine Falls, below the Nisqually glacier, he would double back over the hills to Indian Henry's, thence dropping into the canyon of Tahoma {p.064} Fork, climbing up to St. Andrew's Park, and so working round to the Mowich glaciers, Spray Falls, and the great "parks" on the north. The snout of each glacier would be reached in turn, and the high plateaus which the glaciers have left would be visited.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.063}: Copyright, 1910, By Asahel Curtis. Waterfall from snowfields on ridge above Paradise Valley.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking from Stevens Glacier down into Stevens Canyon, and across the Tatoosh and Cascade ranges to Mt. Adams.]

Crossing Spray Park, Moraine Park and Winthrop glacier's old bed, the road would ascend to Grand Park and the Sour-Dough country--a region unsurpa.s.sed anywhere on the Mountain for the breadth and grandeur of its views. More descents, climbs and detours would bring it to the foot of White glacier, and thence through Summerland and Cowlitz Park, and westward to a junction with the existing road in Paradise. Its elevation would range between four and seven thousand feet above the sea. The route, as indicated on the contour map, suggests very plainly the engineering feats involved in hanging roads on these steep and deeply-carved slopes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Reese's Camp, a tent hotel on a ridge in Paradise Park, below Camp of the Clouds (Elevation, 5,557 feet). This is the usual starting point of parties to the summit over the South-side route, via Gibraltar. See p. 60.]

Between eighty and a hundred miles of construction work would be required, costing approximately $10,000 a mile. Including the completion of the present {p.067} road to standard width, Congress will thus have to provide a round million if it wishes to give reasonable protection to the Park and fully achieve the purpose of "benefit and enjoyment" for which it was created. Such a road would justify the Congress which authorizes it, immortalize the engineers who build it, and honor the nation that owns it.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.065}: Climbing the "horn" on the summit of Unicorn Peak, the highest crag in the Tatoosh (Elevation, about 7,000 feet).

The man who first reached the top is dimly seen in the shadow on the left.]

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.066}: Stevens Canyon in October, with Mt. Adams over eastern end of Tatoosh range on right, and Cascade range on left. The snow summits on the Cascade sky-line are "Goat Peaks." Goat Lick Basin is in lower left corner of the picture.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sluiskin Falls, 150 feet, just below Paradise Glacier, named after Sluiskin, the famous Indian who guided Van Trump and Stevens to the snow line in 1870.]

Talking with President David Starr Jordan of Stanford University a few weeks ago, I found that famous climber of mountains greatly interested in the project for better roads and trails in the National Park. "How much will the whole thing cost?" he asked. I told him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An eminent scientist practices the simple life in camp near the Timber Line.]

"Why, a million dollars would pay for the upkeep of one of our battles.h.i.+ps for a whole year!" exclaimed the great advocate of disarmament. Whether Congress can be induced to value scenery as highly as battles.h.i.+ps remains to be seen. It has already done very well by the Yellowstone National Park, where $2,142,720 of government money had been spent on road building and administration up to July 1, 1910. No one who knows the glories of that park will deem the amount excessive. But with its still grander scenery, its important glaciers, its priceless forests, and the greater population within easy reach of its opportunities for study and recreation, the claims of the Rainier National Park are at least equal to those of the Yellowstone, and they should be as liberally met.

[Ill.u.s.tration {p.068}: Nisqually Glacier, with its sources in the snow field of the summit. On the right is Gibraltar Rock and on the extreme left Kautz Glacier flows down from Peak Success. Note the medial moraines, resulting from junction of ice streams above. These apparently small lines of dirt are often great ridges of rocks, cut from the cliffs. The picture also ill.u.s.trates how the marginal creva.s.ses of a glacier point down stream from the center, though the center flows faster than the sides.]

{p.069} [Ill.u.s.tration: The Sierra Club on Nisqually Glacier. This active California organization sent a large party to the Mountain in 1905.]

It is not desired that the whole sum named be appropriated at once.

Indeed, the recommendation of the engineers has been far more modest.

As far back as 1907, Maj. H. M. Chittenden of the United States Engineer Corps, in charge, wrote as follows in his report to the Secretary of War:

A bridle trail around the Mountain, just under the glacier line, is absolutely essential to the proper policing of the Park, and very necessary for the convenience of tourists, if they are really to have access to the attractions of the Park. The trail should be so located that in time it may be enlarged into a wagon road.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1909, Asahel Curtis. Lost to the World, 7,500 feet above sea level, with an ocean of cloud rising.]