Smyrna times., 1883-02-14
In Cloud Land.

Mount Hood stands about sixty
miles from the great Pacific, as the
crow flies, and about two hundred
miles up the Columbia River, as it is
navigated. Mount Hood stands utterly
alone. And yet he is only brother,
bigger and taller brother, of we'll
raised family of seven snOw-peaks.
AT any season of the year, you can
stand on almost any little eminence
within two hundred miles of Mount
Hood and count seven snow-cones,
clad in eternal Winter piercing the
clouds. There is no scene so sublime
as this IN all the world.
The mountains of Europe are only
hills in comparison. Although some
of them are quite as high as those Of
of Oregon and Washington Territory,
yet they lie far inland, and are so set
on the top of other hills that they lose
much of their majesty. Those of Ore
gon start up sudden and solitary, and
almost out of the sea, as it were. So
that while they are really not much
higher than the mountain peaks of the
Alps, they seem to be about twice as
high. And being all in the form of
pyramids or cones, they are much more
imposing and beautiful than those of
Asia or Europe.
But that which adds most of all to
the beauty and sublimity of the mount
ain scenery of Mount Hood and his en-
virons is the marvellous cloud effects
that encompass him.
In the first place, you must under
stand that all this region here is one
dense black mass of matchless and
magnificent forests. From the waters
edge up to the snow-line Chamber and
cling the dark green fir, pine, cedar,
tamarack, yew, and juniper. Some of
the pines are heavy with great cones as
long as your arms; some of the yew
trees ar scarlet with berries and now
and then you see burly juniper bend
ing under a load of blue and bitter
fruit. And nearly all of these trees are
mantled in garments of moss. This
moss trails and swings lazily in the
wind, and sometimes droops to the
length of hundred feet.
In these great dark forests is dense
underground of vine-maple, hazel,
mountain ash, marsh ash, willow, and
, brier bushes. Tangled in with all this
is the rank and ever present and inn
, perishable fern.
o Up and through and over all this
7 darkness of forests, drift and drag and
. lazily creep the most wierd and won
, derful clonds in all this world. They
move in great caravans. They seem
literally to be alive. They rise with the
morning sun, like the countless millions
. of snow-white geese, swans, and other
: water fowl that frequent the rivers of
=. Oregon, and slowly ascend the noun
= tain sides, dragging themselves through
and over the tops of the trees, heading
I straight for the sea or lowering about
the mountain peaks, like mighty white
: winged birds, weary of flight and want
! ing to rest.
They are white as snow, these clouds
:, of Oregon, fleecy, and rarely, if ever,
still; constantly moving in contrast
= with the black forests, these clouds are
"a strangely sympathetic to one who wOr-
ships nature
:, OF course, in the rainy season, which
- is nearly half the year there, these
. cloud effects are absent. Atsuch times
the whole land is one vast rain-cloud,
- dark and dreary and full of thunder.
To see a snow-peak in all its sublim-
, ity, you must see it above the clouds.
~ ~ 1t is not necessary that you should
~ ~ climb the peak to do this, but ascend
- some neighboring hill and have the
" white clouds creep up or down the val
o ley, through and over the black forest
y between you and the snowy summit
, that pricks the blue home of stars
w What color! Movement Miraculous
:" life From " In the Land of Clouds" b.
Joaquin Miller, in St. Nicholas for Feb
III rHGry.