The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-05
CLIMBING UP PEAKS.
a Hard Journey to the Head of
Sultan River.
TRAIL THROUGH DENSE FOREST
a 81. Paul Mans Trip to Mining Camp
In the Cascade Mountains-A
Glacier.

among the guests at the Northern
hotei Is William F. Phelps, of st. Paul.
VINO has come to this state to look over
some mining properties. Mr.. Phelps has
spent the most of his life in the orraniza.
ton ana management of normal schools.
For some years he was in the New York
state normal school at Albany. and from
mere ne went to similar institution at
Trenton. After nearly q decade in New
Jersey he came west to Minnesota. and
organized the normal school at Winona.
In Wisconsin he started another, and
then returned to Winona to take the
place OF superintendent of public schools.
during the last ten years, however, he
mas been in commercial life, as secretary
OF the st. Paul Chamber of Commerce and
later Of the Duluth Chamber, and also
as agent for several Eastern syndicates.
Yesterday he said: 'I have lust come
back from the Cascade mountains where
have been inspecting the Little Chief and
the Silver Peak mining claims at the head
| OF the Sultan river. The trip has been
rough beyond description.
I'VE left here last week Tues
day. taking the Seattle, Lake
Shore q Eastern train to Machias.
| After dinner we mounted our ponies,
two tough bronchos, and travelled about
eight miles over a hard road by the Sultan
river. Then eight miles more on a trail
| in the mountains and through the densest
forest have ever seen brought US to the
cabin of homesteader, with whom we
| spent the night, sleeping on a bed of
| spruce boughs and boards covered with a
| blanket.
EARLY the next morning we again
mounted our ponies and took to the trail,
| which steadily grew worse, until we ar
rived at the summit of the divide, between
the two forks of the Sultan. There we
were met by two guides from the camp to
which we were bound.
"At the summit we abandoned our
horses, and on foot followed for eleven
miles trail blazed in the trees, and
| marked now and then by human footsteps
and the tracks of elk and bear. The diff
cuities and hardships OF the march were
so great that during the whole afternoon
| We made only eight miles. The way was
blocked by hundreds of fallen trees from
| one to five or six feet in diameter and by
underbrush of every description. We had
| to ascend and descend in almost endless
succession, steep promontories projecting
| from the mountain ridges to the rivers
edge. and then make our way through in
tervening- marshy valleys crowded with
| tall, rank vegetation almost as obstructive
| as the fallen timber.
On Wednesday night we camped in the
unoccupied cabin of a homesteader, who
had piled up few logs and put over the
structure roof of cedar shingles, as evil
dence of his determination to improve the
claim in accordance with law.
ION Thursday morning we pushed on
toward our destination, three miles away.
You may judge of the trail when tell
| you that it required six hours and half
| to make the distance. We were obliged to
halt and rest at every few hundred yards
This last three miles was decidedly the
worst stretch of the whole trip; and when
we came to camp we threw ourselves upon
| spruce boughs to rest and to fight the mos
| quitoes, which evidently had never before
tastsd civilized blood.
This camp, on the border Of the north
| fork of the Sultan, is surrounded with
peaks of the Cascades which rise above it
from 2, 500 to 5000 feet. Across the river,
which is very tortuous, the peaks stand
two miles apart, so that the sun, in rising
and setting. illumines the rocky summit
for hours before and after he shows HIM
self to the pigmies in the bottom of the
canyon. The camp is but two or three
miles from the source of the river. Copper
lake, in the summit of the mountain,
near Silver Peak lode.
"On Friday morning we started at once
for the Little Chief, which crops out in a
deep gorge, running from the base of the
a;r 20 a,,I
| ridge. In climbing through this gorge we
encountered glacier, the thickness of
which various from six or eight feet at
the sides to perhaps fifty or 100 feet in
the middle. The ascent of this body of
ice and snow is slow and toilsome,
though delicious cool breeze rolled down
its surface to brace our nerves and cheer
our spirits.
Having climbed to an altitude of from
600 to 500 feet above camp, We were at the
base OF the outcrop of the lode of the
Little Chief In rises in a massive column
with a rounded face to a height of not
less than go or 800 feet, and its thickness
cannot be less than 100 feet. The vein
has a deep brown tinge, caused by the
oxydization of the iron pyrites, and here
and there are streaks of green and yellow,
probably from the presence of copper car
donates and silver sulphides. The lode
slopes up to the summit and through it
for a distance of perhaps 1000 or 800
feet. We put in blast throughs what
| the miners call a 'cap," or as l call it, .
"shell," which seems to be from a
| foot to eighteen inches thick. Inside of
| this the vein matter seems 10 be disinte-
| grating, so that 1t can be handled with
| pick and shovel, making mining compare
| lively cheap and inexpensive. |, of
| course, do not know to what extent this
| disintegraIion has been accomplished.
| Probably not very far. But We sent man
the next day. Saturday, up thousand
| feet higher to put in another charge and
the result was that he brought back the
| same Class of ore.
THE Silver Peak vein, near by. and so
| far as prospected carries two kinds of ore,
| one galena and the other apparently .
| silver sulphide.
'In day or two We go to examine some
| properties along the line of the Monte
| Cristo railroad"