# The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce/Part 2/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V
A Side Trip to Some of the Great Snow-Peaks
Attractions of our Mountain Peaks—Relations to the Rivers—Locations of the Greatest and their Positions with Regard to the Cities and the Routes of Travel—The Mountain Clubs—The Peaks, Especially Belonging to the River: Hood, Adams, and St. Helens—A Journey to Hood—Beauty of the Approach through Hood River Valley—Lost Lake—Cloud-Cap Inn and Elliot Glacier—Extreme Steepness of the Ascent—Magnificence of the View—Mt. Adams—The Hunting and Fishing—The Glaciers—The Vegetation about the Snow-Line—The Night Storm—Morning and the Ascent—Views Around, Up, Down—Ascent by the Mazama Club in 1902 and the Transformation Scene—General Similarity of Ascent of our Peaks—Zones of a Snow-Peak.
"Nesika Klatawa Sahale"
MOST countries have rivers of beauty and grandeur; many have lakes of scenic charm; many have hills and mountain chains; but there is only one country in the United States that has all of these features, and, in addition, a number of isolated giant peaks, clad in permanent ice and snow. That country is the Pacific North-west. Throughout Oregon and Washington and extending partly through California is a series of volcanic peaks which gather within themselves every feature of natural beauty, sublimity, and wonder.
The greatest influence in organising visits to these mountains, and in cultivating an appreciation of them among the people of the region, as well as in informing the world regarding them, has existed in the mountain clubs. The chief of these are the Mazama (Wild Goat) Club of Portland and the Mountaineers of Seattle. Membership is not confined to those two cities, though mainly located there. The Mazama Club may be called the historic mountain climber's club, and it has done incalculable good in fostering a love of mountains and in arranging expeditions to them.
The three peaks which may be considered as especially belonging to the Columbia River are Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. As the traveller on the River views the unsullied spires and domes of these great ​temples of nature, he longs to worship in their more immediate presence. As a logical consequence of this sentiment, after having floated down the Columbia from The Dalles to Rooster Rock, we feel that life would be at least partly in vain if we should fail to plant feet on the topmost snows of at least two of these great heights.
We will first visit Hood. Though not the highest, this is the boldest and most picturesque of all. Moreover by reason of its location, seen conspicuously as it is from Portland and the Willamette Valley, and because of its nearness to the old immigrant road into Oregon, Hood was the first noticed, and the most often described, painted, and berhymed of any of the wintry brotherhood. As the Puget Sound region became settled, and great cities began to grow up there, Mt. Rainier (“Takhoma”) began to be a rival in popular estimation. When measurements showed that Rainier was three thousand feet higher, and Adams over one thousand feet higher than the idolised Hood, a wail of grief arose from the Oregonians, and for a time they could hardly be reconciled. But as they became adjusted to the situation, they planted themselves upon the proposition that, though Hood was not the highest, it was the most beautiful, and that its surroundings were superior to those of any other. For this proposition there is much to be said, though, in truth, we must accept the dictum of Dogberry that “comparisons are odorous”
From the Inn one can climb in a few minutes to Photographer's Point, from which he can look right down on the Elliot Glacier, not a large, but an exceedingly fine specimen of that most interesting of all features of a great peak.
Hood, though so steep, can be ascended from several points. It was for a long time supposed to be unscalable from the north side. But William Langille, one of the most daring and successful mountain climbers of Oregon, soon found his way up the sharp ascent, and, once marked out, that route has been ​followed by the great majority of climbers. Though very steep, there has never been an accident on this route except in one case, when a stranger undertook the climb alone and never returned. He probably lost his footing and fell into a crevasse. With the usual precautions of ropes and ice hatchets and caulks, a party can make their way over the steep slope, and its very steepness makes the ascent quicker and less exhaustive than to overcome the longer and more gradual ascents of Adams or "Takhoma." While it takes but about four or five hours for an average party to go from snow-line to summit of Hood, either of the other mountains named demands from seven to ten hours.
And having reached the summit, what a view! If the day be entirely clear—a rare occurrence—you will behold a domain for an empire. On the south, the long line of the Cascades, with the occasional great heights, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Thielson, Diamond, Scott, and, if it be very clear, even Pitt. To the north, the giant bulk of Adams, the airy symmetry of St. Helens, and the lordly majesty of Rainier, rule sky and earth, while in mazy undulations the great range, alternately purple and white, stretches on and on until it blends into the clouds.
Seemingly almost at the feet of the observer, a dark green sinuosity amid the timbered hills, now strangely flattened, as we stand so high above them, marks the course of the River on its march oceanward. If the day be very clear, a whitish blur far westward shows where the "Rose City" on the Willamette reigns over her fair domains, while a dim stretch of varied hues denotes the Willamette Valley. ​Some climbers have even asserted that late in the afternoon of extremely clear days the glint of the western sun can be seen upon the Pacific, a hundred and fifty miles distant. Toward the east lie the vast plains of the Inland Empire, marked at their farther limit by the soft curves and lazy swells of the range of the Blue Mountains.
While it is an ungracious and even a fruitless undertaking to compare such objects as the great mountains or the views from the respective summits, it may be said that Hood has one conspicuous feature of the view, and that is that it is nearest the centre of the great mountain peaks, as well as systems, and also best commands the outlook over the great valley systems and river systems of this part of the Columbia Basin. And therefore, though the view is not equal in breadth to that from the summit of Adams or Rainier, it is unsurpassed for variety and interest. It may be said to cover more history than the view from any other peak. Across the southern flank lies the old Barlow Road, over which came the greater part of the immigration in the days of the ox-team conquest of Oregon in the forties and fifties. Thirty miles east is The Dalles with its old fur-trader's station, its old United States fort, its mission station, its Indian wars, its early settlement, the most historic place in Eastern Oregon. From the old town, during all the years from the opening of the century, there descended the River the trappers, missionaries, immigrants, miners, soldiers, hunters, home-seekers, of a later day, adventurers and promoters of every species, to say nothing of the generations of Indians who lived and died along the banks.
​To the west of our icy eyrie, Portland and Vancouver, with the rich valleys around them, represent the earliest explorations and developments of the fur-traders, as well as the earliest days of the era of permanent settlement. There in the westward haze is the little town of Champoeg where the Provisional Government of Oregon was established. In fact, in whatsoever direction we may look, we see illustrations of the heroic age of Old Oregon, the drama of native races, rival powers of Europe and America, the march of empire, a section of humanity and the world in the making.
When our visit to Hood is ended we must cross the River and traverse another paradise, the White Salmon Valley, leading to Mt. Adams, the old Indian Klickitat. Adams is in such a position that its true elevation and magnitude cannot be understood from Portland or The Dalles or most of the routes of travel. Therefore until comparatively recent times it was generally supposed that Adams was an insignificant mountain in comparison with Hood, which looms up with such imposing grandeur from every point along the chief highways of commerce. It was discovered by the Mazama Club in 1896 that Adams carried his regal crown at a height of twelve thousand four hundred and seventy feet above the level of the sea, while the previously established height of Hood was only eleven thousand two hundred and twenty-five. Since then Adams has been held in much greater respect by mountain lovers, and many journeys have been made to and on it.
Around Mt. Adams is a region of caves. As one rides through the open glades he may often hear the ​ground rumble beneath his horse's hoofs. Mouths of Avernus yawn on every side. Some caverns have sunken in, leaving serpentine ravines. One cave has been traced three miles without finding the end. Some of these caves are partially filled with ice. There is one in particular, fifteen miles south-west of the mountain, which is known as Ice Cave. This is very small, not over four hundred feet long, but it is a marvel of unique beauty. Its external appearance is that of a huge well, at whose edge are bunches of nodding flowers, and from whose dark depths issue sudden chilly gusts. Descending by means of a knotty young tree which previous visitors have let down, we find ourselves on a floor of ice. The glare of pitch-pine torches reveals a weird and beautiful scene. A perfect forest of icicles of both the stalactite and stalagmite forms fills the cave. They are from ten to fifteen feet in length and from one to three in diameter. From some points of view they look like silvered organ-pipes.
These caves have been formed in some cases by chambers of steam or bubbles in the yet pasty rock which hardened enough to maintain their form upon the condensation of the vapour. Others were doubtless produced by a tongue of lava as it collected slag and hardened rock upon its moving edge, rising up and curling over like a breaker on the sand. Only the “cave of flint” instead of turning into a “retreating cloud” had enough solid matter to sustain the arch and so became permanent. Others were no doubt formed by products. A tongue of flowing lava hardens on the surface. The interior remains fluid. It may continue running until the tongue is all ​emptied, leaving a cavern. Such a cavern, whose upper end reaches the cold air of the mountains, might be like a chimney, down which freezing air would descend, turning into ice the water that trickled into the cave, even at the lower end.
But now, with stomachs and knapsacks filled, and with that pervasive sense of contentment which characterises the successful hunter and angler, we must get up our cayuse ponies from their pastures on the rich grass of the open woods, saddle up, and then off for the mountain, whose giant form now overtops the very clouds. About two miles from Trout Lake the trail crosses the White Salmon, and we find ourselves at the foot of the mountain. For eight miles we follow a trail through open woods, park-like, with huge pines at irregular intervals, and vivid grass and flowers between, a fair scene, the native home of every kind of game.
As we journey on delightedly through these glades, rising, terrace after terrace, we can read the history of the mountain in the rock beneath our feet and the expanding plains and hills below. All within the ancient amphitheatre is volcanic. There are four main summits, a central dome, vast, symmetrical, majestic, pure-white against the blue-black sky of its unsullied height. The three other peaks are broken crags of basalt, leaning as for support against the mighty mass at the centre. Around the snow-line of the mountain many minor cones have been blown up. These have the most gaudy and brilliant colouring, mainly yellow and vermilion. One on the south-east is ​especially noticeable. From a deep cañon it rises two thousand feet as steep as broken scoriæ can lie. The main part is bright red, surmounted by a circular cliff of black rock. Probably the old funnel of the crater became filled with black rock, which, cooling, formed a solid core. The older material around it having crumbled away, it remains a solid shaft.
But we are not content to stand below and gaze "upward to that height." We must needs ascend. In climbing a snow peak a great deal depends on making camp at a good height and getting a very early start. By a little searching one may find good camping places at an elevation of seven thousand or even eight thousand feet altitude. This leaves only four thousand or five thousand feet to climb on the great day, and by starting at about four o'clock a party may have sixteen hours of daylight. This is enough, if there be no accidents, to enable any sound man of average muscle,—or woman either, if she be properly dressed for it,—to gain the mighty dome of Adams.
At the time of our last ascent we camped high on a great ridge on the south side of the mountain, having for shelter a thick copse of dwarf firs. So fiercely had the winds of centuries swept this exposed point that the trees did not stand erect, but lay horizontal from west to east.
With pulses bounding from the exhilarating air, and our whole systems glowing with the exercise and the wild game of the preceding week, we stretch ourselves out for sleep, while the stars blaze from infinite heights, and our uneasy camp-fire strives fitfully with the icy air which at nightfall always slides down the mountain side.
Sweet sleep till midnight, and then we found ourselves awake all at once with a unanimity which at ​first we scarcely understood, but which a moment's observation made clear enough. A regular mountain gale had suddenly broken upon us. It had waked us up by nearly blowing us out of bed. Our camp-fire was aroused to newness of life by the gale, and the huge fire-brands flew down the mountain side, igniting pitchy thickets, until a fitful glare illuminated the lonely and savage grandeur of the scene. The whole sky seemed in motion. Then a cloud struck us. Night, glittering as she was a moment before with her tiaras of stars, was suddenly transformed into a dull, whitish blur. The vapour formed at once into thick drops on the trees and was precipitated in turn on us. Occasional sleet and snowflakes struck us with almost the sting of flying sand when we ventured to peep out. Covering ourselves up, heads and all, we crowded against each other and grimly went to sleep.
Coffee, ham, and hardtack, and then out on the ice and snow, just as the first warm flush of morning is gilding the mighty mass above us. The snow, hardened by the freezing morning, affords excellent footing, and in the sharp, bracing air we feel capable of any effort. We gain the summit of a bright red knob, one of the secondary volcanoes that girdle the mountain. At its peak are purple stones piled up like an altar, as indeed it is, though the incense from it is not of human kindling. The sun is not fairly up, but from below the horizon it splits the hemisphere of the sky into a hundred segments by its auroral flashes. And now we begin to climb a volcanic ridge, rising like a huge stairway, with blocks of stone as large as a piano. This is a tongue of lava, very recent, insomuch that it shows no glacial markings, and yet enough soil has accumulated upon it to support vegetation. It can be seen, a dull red river, three hundred yards wide, extending far down the mountain side. How well the old Greek poet described the process that must have taken place here: "Ætna, pillar of heaven, nurse of snow, with fountains of fire; a river of fire, bearing down rocks with a crashing sound to the deep sea."
The ridge becomes very steep, at an angle of probably thirty-five or forty degrees, and we climb on all fours from one rock to another. At last we draw ourselves up a huge wedge of phonolite and find ourselves at the summit of the first peak. Six hundred ​yards beyond, muffled in white silence, rises the great dome. It is probably five hundred feet higher than the first peak. To reach it we climb a bare, steep ridge of shaly, frost-shattered rock, in which we sink ankle deep, a difficult and even painful task with the laboured breathing of twelve thousand feet altitude.
But patience conquers, and at about noon, seven hours and a half from the time of starting, we stand on the very tip of the mountain. Ten minutes panting in the cold wind and then we are ready to look around. Within the circle of our vision is an area for an empire. Northward is a wilderness of mountains. High above all, Mt. Rainier lifts his white crown unbroken to the only majesty above him, the sky. The western horizon, more hazy than the eastern, is punctuated by the smooth dome and steely glitter of Mt. St. Helens. Far southward, across a wilderness of broken heights, rises the sharp pinnacle of Mt. Hood, and far beyond that, its younger brother, Jefferson. Still beyond, are the Alpine peaks of the Three Sisters, nearly two hundred miles distant. Our vision sweeps a circle whose diameter is probably five hundred miles. Far westward the white haze betokens the presence of the sea. A deep blue line north-eastward, far beyond the smooth dome of St. Helens, stands for Puget Sound. Numerous lakes gleam in woody solitudes.
But now once more to earth and camp! For pure exhilaration, commend me to descending a snow peak. For a good part of Mt. Adams one may descend in huge jumps through the loose scoriæ and volcanic ashes. Some of the way one may slide on the crusty snow, a perfect whiz of descent. How the thin wind cuts past us, and how our frames glow with the dizzy speed! Such a manner of descent is not altogether safe. As we are going in one place with flying jumps on the softening snow, a chasm suddenly appears before us. It looks ten feet wide, and how deep, no one ​could guess. To stop is out of the question. We make a wild bound and clear it, catching a momentary glance into the bluish-green crack as we fly across. We make the descent in an incredibly short time, only a little more than an hour, whereas it took us over seven hours to ascend. And then the rest and mighty feasts of camp, and the abundant and mountainous yarns, and the roaring camp-fire, whose shadows flicker on the solemn snow-fields, until the stars claim the heavens, and, while the wailing cry of the cougars rises from a jungle far below us, we sleep and perform again in dreams the day's exploits.
It may be understood that the description of one of our great snow-peaks is, in general terms, a description of all. With every one there are the same azure skies, the same snow-caps, the same crevassed and glistening rivers of ice, the same long ridges with their intervening grassy and flowery meads, purling streams, and reflecting lakes. With the name of each there rises before Mazama or Mountaineer the remembrance of the camp of clouds or stars upon the edge of snow-bank, the sound of the bugle at two o'clock in the morning of the great climb, the hastily swallowed breakfast of coffee and ham, while climbers stand shivering around the flickering morning fire, the approaching day with its banners of crimson behind the ​heights, the daubing of faces with grease-paint and the putting on of goggles, amid shouts of laughter from each at the grotesque and picturesque ugliness of all the others, then the hastily grasped alpenstocks, the forming in line, and at about four o'clock, while the first rays of the sun are gilding the summit, the word of command and the beginning of the march.
It is from such a camp at the upper edge of the paradise zone that a party sets forth at the four o'clock hour to attain the highest. So the march on the great day of a final climb carries us at once into a fourth zone. This is the zone of avalanche and glacier, the zone of elemental fury and warfare, a zone of ever-steepening ascent, thirty degrees, a zone of almost winter cold at night, but with such a dazzling brightness and fervour in the day as turns the snow-banks to slush and sends the fountains tearing and cutting across the glaciers and triturating the moraines. Vegetation has now almost ceased, though the heather still drapes the ledges on the eastern or southern exposures, and occasionally one of the tenacious mountain pines upholds the banner of spring in some sheltered nook. This wind-swept and storm-lashed zone is also the zone of the wild goats and mountain sheep. On the precipitous ridges and along the narrow ledges at the margin of glaciers they can be seen bounding away at the approach of the party, sure-footed and swift at points where the nerve of the best human climber might fail. This zone carries the climbers to ten or eleven thousand feet of elevation ​ is the place for the Mountaineers and Mazamas to take the half-hour rest on their arduous march. A sweet rest it is. We pick out some sheltered place on the eastern slope, and stretch ourselves at full length on the warm rocks, while the icy wind from the summit goes hurtling above us. And how good the chocolate and the malted milk and the prunes and raisins of the scanty lunch taste, while we rest and feel the might of elemental nature again fill our veins and lungs and hearts.