Last Summer I Gained The Summit From The South Side, In A Day And A
Half From The Timberline, Without Encountering Any Desperate Obstacles
That Could Not In Some Way Be Passed In Good Weather.
I was
accompanied by Keith, the artist, Professor Ingraham, and five
ambitious young climbers from Seattle.
We were led by the veteran
mountaineer and guide Van Trump, of Yelm, who many years before guided
General Stevens in his memorable ascent, and later Mr. Bailey, of
Oakland. With a cumbersome abundance of campstools and blankets we
set out from Seattle, traveling by rail as far as Yelm Prairie, on the
Tacoma and Oregon road. Here we made our first camp and arranged with
Mr. Longmire, a farmer in the neighborhood, for pack and saddle
animals. The noble King Mountain was in full view from here,
glorifying the bright, sunny day with his presence, rising in godlike
majesty over the woods, with the magnificent prairie as a foreground.
The distance to the mountain from Yelm in a straight line is perhaps
fifty miles; but by the mule and yellowjacket trail we had to follow
it is a hundred miles. For, notwithstanding a portion of this trail
runs in the air, where the wasps work hardest, it is far from being an
air line as commonly understood.
By night of the third day we reached the Soda Springs on the right
bank of the Nisqually, which goes roaring by, gray with mud, gravel,
and boulders from the caves of the glaciers of Rainier, now close at
hand. The distance from the Soda Springs to the Camp of the Clouds is
about ten miles. The first part of the way lies up the Nisqually
Canyon, the bottom of which is flat in some places and the walls very
high and precipitous, like those of the Yosemite Valley. The upper
part of the canyon is still occupied by one of the Nisqually glaciers,
from which this branch of the river draws its source, issuing from a
cave in the gray, rock-strewn snout. About a mile below the glacier
we had to ford the river, which caused some anxiety, for the current
is very rapid and carried forward large boulders as well as lighter
material, while its savage roar is bewildering.
At this point we left the canyon, climbing out of it by a steep zigzag
up the old lateral moraine of the glacier, which was deposited when
the present glacier flowed past at this height, and is about eight
hundred feet high. It is now covered with a superb growth of Picea
amabilis[30]; so also is the corresponding portion of the right
lateral. From the top of the moraine, still ascending, we passed for
a mile or two through a forest of mixed growth, mainly silver fir,
Patton spruce, and mountain pine, and then came to the charming park
region, at an elevation of about five thousand feet above sea level.
Here the vast continuous woods at length begin to give way under the
dominion of climate, though still at this height retaining their
beauty and giving no sign of stress of storm, sweeping upward in belts
of varying width, composed mainly of one species of fir, sharp and
spiry in form, leaving smooth, spacious parks, with here and there
separate groups of trees standing out in the midst of the openings
like islands in a lake.
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