MOUNT ADAMS.

photographLava Flume near Trout Lake, about thirty feet wide and forty feet high.

photographY. M. C. A. party from North Yakima at Red Butte, an extinct volcano on north side of Mount Adams.

Between Coe and Ladd glaciers is a high rocky ridge known as Barrett Spur, from which, at nearly 8,000 feet, one may obtain glorious views of the peak above, the two glaciers sweeping down its steep face and the sea of ranges stretching westward. (See illustrations, pp.69and75.) Barrett Spur may have been part of the original surface of the mountain, but is more likely the remnant of a secondary cone, ice and weathering having destroyed its conical shape. From its top, the climber looks over into the broad-bottomed canyon of Sandy River, fed by the large and small Sandy glaciers of the west slope. (See pp.71and76.) This canyon and that of the Zigzag River, south of it, from Zigzag glacier, are "plainly glacier-sculptured," as Sylvester declares. The same is true of the canyon lying below the White River glacier, on the southeast slope. In journeying to Government Camp, one maysee abundant evidence of the glacial origin of the Sandy and Zigzag canyons. The White River Canyon has been thoroughly explored and described by Prof. Reid.

All three of these wide U-shaped canyons were once occupied by great glaciers, which left their record in the scorings upon the sides of the gorges; in the mesas of finely ground moraine which they spread over the bottoms and through which the modern rivers have cut deep ravines; in trees broken and buried by the glaciers in this drift; in the fossil ice lying beneath it, and in huge angular boulders left standing on the valley floors, several miles from the mountain.

photographIce Cave in lava beds near Trout Lake.

Sandy glacier extends three hundred feet farther down the slope than do the north-side glaciers, but the Zigzag and White River glaciers, flowing out of the crater, end a thousand feet higher. This is due not only to the smaller reservoirs which feed them and to their southern exposure, but also doubtless to the easier grade, which holds the ice longer on the slope. On the east side of the peak is a broad ice-stream, the Newton Clark glacier, which also ends at a high altitude, dropping its ice over a cliff into deep ravines at the head of East Fork of Hood River. This glacier, well seen from Cooper Spur, completes the circuit of the mountain. (See pp.83and84.)

mapEnlargeMount Adams, elevation 12,307 feet.

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Sylvester suggests that Mount Hood may not be extinct but sleeping. For this, however, there is little more evidence that may be discovered on other Northwestern peaks. About Crater Rock, steam jets are found, gas escapes, and the rocks are warm in many places. "Fumaroles" exist, where the residuary heat causes openings in the snow bed. Sylvester reports dense smoke and steam issuing from Crater Rock by day and a brilliant illumination there at night, inAugust, 1907. But volcanoes sometimes contradict prophecy, and no further intimations of trouble having since been offered, this display may be deemed the last gasp of a dying monster rather than an awakening toward new life.

photographCOPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTERTelephoto view of Mount Adams, from the northeast side of Mount St. Helens, at elevation of 7,000 feet, overlooking the densely timbered ranges of the Cascades.

photographMount Adams from Trout Creek, at Guler, near Trout Lake; distance twelve miles.

photographEnlargeClimbers on South Butte, the hard lava neck of a crater on south slope, left by weathering of the softer materials of its cone. Elevation, 7,800 feet. The usual route to summit leads up the talus on right.

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Going up the White Salmon Valley toward Mount Adams, the visitor quickly realizes that he is in a different geological district from that around Mount Hood. The Oregon peak is mainly a pile of volcanic rocks and cinders ejected from its crater. Little hard basalt is found, and in all its circumference I know of only one large surface area of new lava. This is a few miles north ofCloud Cap, and so recent that no trees grow on it. But north of the Columbia, one meets evidences of comparatively recent lava sheets in many parts of the valley. Some obviously have no connection with Mount Adams; they flowed out of fissures on the ridges. But these beds of volcanic rock become more apparent, and are less covered with soil, as we approach the mountain, until, long before timber line is reached, dikes and streams of basalt, as yet hardly beginning to disintegrate, are found on all sides of the peak.

photographDawn on Mount Adams, telephotographed from Guler, at 4 a. m., showing the three summit peaks, of which the middle one is the highest. The route of the climbers is up the south slope, seen on right.

photographForaging in the snow. The Mount Adams country supports hundreds of large flocks of sheep.

photographCOPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTERSteel's Cliff, southeast side of Mount Hood. In the distance is seen Juniper Flat, in eastern Oregon.

The form and slope of Mount Adams tell of an age far greater than Mount Hood's, but its story is not, like that of Hood, the legible record of a simple volcanic cone. It wholly lacks the symmetry of such a pile. Viewed from a distance, it sits very majestically upon the summit of one of the eastern ranges of the Cascades. As we approach, however, it is seen to have little of the conical shape of Hood, still less that of graceful St. Helens, which is young and as yet practically unbroken. Its summit has been much worn down by ice or perhaps byexplosions. Some of its sides are deeply indented, and all are vastly irregular in angle and markings—here a face now too steeply cut to hold a glacier, but showing old glacial scorings far down its slope; there another terraced and ribbed with waves and dikes of lava. The mountain is a long ridge rather than a round peak, and close inspection shows it to be a composite of several great cones, leaning one upon another,—the product of many craters acting in successive ages. On its ancient, scarred slopes, a hundred modern vents have added to the ruggedness and interest of the peak. Many of these blowholes built parasitic cones, from which the snows of later centuries have eroded the loose external mass, leaving only the hard lava cores upstanding like obelisks. Other vents belched out vast sheets of rock that will require a century more of weathering to make hospitable even to the sub-alpine trees most humble in their demands for soil.

boat on Spirit Lake with Mt St Helens behindCOPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER.Ice Castle and great Crevasse, near the head of Eliot Glacier, Mt. Hood."Touched by a light that hath no name,A glory never sung,Aloft on sky and mountain wallAre God's great pictures hung."—Whittier.

COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER.Ice Castle and great Crevasse, near the head of Eliot Glacier, Mt. Hood."Touched by a light that hath no name,A glory never sung,Aloft on sky and mountain wallAre God's great pictures hung."—Whittier.

"Touched by a light that hath no name,A glory never sung,Aloft on sky and mountain wallAre God's great pictures hung."—Whittier.

photographMazamas climbing a 40° stairway of shattered basalt, north side of Mount Adams.

photographMount Adams from one of the many lakes on its southeast slope. On ridge above, near the end of Mazama glacier, a hotel is to be erected.

Mount Adams therefore presents a greater variety of history, a more complex and fascinating problem for the student to unravel, than any of its neighbors. This interestextends to the district about it, a country of new lava flows covering much of the older surface. The same conditions mark the region surrounding the newer peak, St. Helens, thirty miles west. In each district, sheets of molten rock have been poured across an ancient and heavily forested land. Thus as we travel up the rich valleys leading from the Columbia to either peak, we meet everywhere the phenomena of vulcanism.

photographClimbers ascending from South Peak to Middle Peak on Mount Adams, with the "bergschrund" above Klickitat glacier on right. This central dome is about 500 feet higher than South Peak.

photographMount Adams, seen from Happy Valley, south side. Elevation about 7,000 feet. Mazama glacier is on right.

The lava sheet flowing around or over a standing or fallen tree took a perfect impression of its trunk and bark. Thousands of these old tree casts are found near both Adams and St. Helens. Where the lava reached a watercourse,it flowed down in a deeper stream, a river of liquid rock. Lava is a poor conductor of heat; hence the stream cooled more quickly on the surface than below. Soon a crust was formed, like the ice over a creek in winter. Under it the lava flowed on and out, as the flood stopped, leaving a gallery or flume. Later flows filled the great drain again and again, adding new strata to its roof, floor and sides, and lessening its bore. Long after the outflows ceased, weathering by heat and frost broke openings here and there. Many of the flumes were choked with drift. But others, in the newer lava beds, may be explored for miles. It was from the lava caves of northern California that the Modoc Indians waged their famous war in the Seventies.

photographMount Adams, from Snow-Plow Mountain, three miles southeast of the snow line; elevation 5,070 feet, overlooking the broad "park" country west of Hellroaring Canyon.

photographCOPYRIGHT, S. C. SMITHWind-whittled ice near the summit of Mount Adams.

The disintegration of the lava galleries in the Mount Adams field has of course produced caves of all sorts and sizes. Where one of these is closed at one end with debris, so that the summer aircannot circulate to displace the heavier cold remaining from winter, the cave, if it has a water supply, becomes an ice factory. The Trout Lake district has several interesting examples of suchglacieres, as they have been named, where one may take refuge from July or August heat above ground, and, forty feet below, in a cave well protected from sun and summer breeze, find great masses of ice, with more perhaps still forming as water filters in from a surface lake or an underground spring. The Columbia River towns as far away as Portland and The Dalles formerly obtained ice from the Trout Lake caves, but at present they supply only some near-by farmers.

Mazama glacier, at head of Hellroaring Canyon. Upper view shows floor of canyon, a mile below the glacier, with the "Ridge of Wonders" on right. Lower view is from ridge west of the canyon, near end of Mazama glacier, elevation nearly 7,000 feet. Note great lateral moraine which the glacier has built on left.

Mount Adams is ascended without difficulty by either its north or south slope. On the east and west faces, the cliffs and ice cascades appall even the expert alpinist. As yet, so far as I can learn, no ascents have been made over these slopes. The southern route is the more popular one. It leads by well-marked trails up from Guler or Glenwood, over a succession of terraces clad in fine, open forest; ascends McDonald Ridge, amid increasing barriers of lava; passes South Butte, a decaying pillar of red silhouetted against the black rocks and white snow-fields; crosses many a caldron of twisted and broken basalt,—"Devil's Half Acres" that once were the hot, vomiting mouths of drains from thefiery heart of the peak; scales a giants' stairway tilted to forty degrees, overlooking the west branch of Mazama glacier on one side and a small unnamed glacier on the other; and at last gains the broad shoulder which projects far on the south slope. (See illustrations, pp.89and93.)

photographNearing the summit, south side.

Upper Ice Cascade of Klickitat glacier.

Here, from a height of nine thousand feet, we look down on the low, wide reservoir of Mazama glacier on the east, and up to the ice-falls above Klickitat glacier on the higher slopes beyond. The great platform on which we stand was built up by a crater, three thousand feet below the summit. The climb to it has disclosed the fact that the mountain is composed mostly of lava. Some of the ravine cuttings have shown lapilli and cinders, but these are rarer than on the other Northwestern peaks. The harder structure has resisted the erosion which is cutting so deeply into the lower slopes of Hood. On Mount Adams, not only do the glaciers, with one or two notable exceptions, lie up on the general surface of the mountain, banked by their moraines; but their streams have cut few deep ravines.

photographAn Upland "Park," west of Hellroaring Canyon.

photographMount Adams, from the Ridge of Wonders, showing the great amphitheater or "cirque" of Klickitat glacier, fed by avalanches from the summit plateau. This is the most important example of glacial sculpture on the mountain. Beyond, on the right, is seen the head of Rusk glacier, while on the left is Mazama glacier. Note the stunted sub-alpine trees scattered thinly over this ridge, even up to an altitude of 7,000 feet.

From this point, the route becomes steeper, but is still over talus, until the first of the three summit elevations, known as South Peak, is reached. This is only five hundred feet below the actual summit, Middle Peak, which is gained by a short, hard pull, generallyover snow. (See p.94.) The north-side route is up a long, sharp ridge between Lava and Adams glaciers (p.104). Like the other path, its grade is at first easy; but its last half mile of elevation is achieved over a slope even steeper, and ending in a longer climb over the snow. Neither route, however, offers so hard a finish as that which ends the Mount Hood climb. From the timber-line on either side, the ascent requires six or seven hours.

photographStorm on Klickitat Glacier, seen from the Ridge of Wonders.

Snow cornice above the bergschrund at head of Klickitat glacier, with another part of the same crevasse.

The summit ridge is nearly a mile long and two-thirds as wide. It is the gathering ground of the snows that feed Klickitat, Lyman, Adams and White Salmon glaciers. (See map, p.87.) Mazama, Rusk, Lava, Pinnacle and Avalanche glaciers lie beneath cliffs too steep to carry ice-streams. Their income is mainly collected from the slopes, and if they receive snow from the broad summit at all, it is chiefly in the avalanches of early summer. Nearly all the glaciers, however, are thus fed in part, the steep east and west faces making Mount Adams famous for its avalanches.

photographMount Adams, seen from the northeast, with the Lyman glaciers in center, Rusk glacier on extreme left, and Lava glacier, right. The ridge beyond Lava glacier is the north-side route to the summit. The Lyman glaciers, like Adams glacier on the northwest side, are noteworthy for their cascades of ice.

From the summit on either side, the climber may look down sheer for half a mile to the reservoirs and great ice cascades of the glaciers below. It isseen that with the exception of the Rusk and Klickitat, which are deeply embedded in canyons, the glaciers spread out, fan-like, on the lower slopes, and are held up by their moraines. Most of them end at elevations considerably above six thousand five hundred feet. The difference in this respect between Adams and Hood is due, no doubt, to lighter rainfall.

photographCOPYRIGHT, ASAHEL CURTISMount Adams from Sunnyside, Washington, with irrigation "ditch" in foreground.

photographCrevasse in Lava glacier, north side of Mount Adams.

Of the two glaciers just mentioned the Klickitat is the larger and more typical. The Rusk, however, is of interest because it flows, greatly crevassed, down a narrow flume or couloir on the east slope. Its bed, Reid suggests, may have been the channel of "a former lava flow, which, hardening on the surface, allowed the liquid lava inside to flow out; and later the top broke in." The Klickitat glacier lies in a much larger canyon, which it has evidently cut for itself. This is one of the most characteristic glacial amphitheaters in America, resembling, though on a smaller scale, the vast Carbon glaciercirquewhich is the crowning glory of the Rainier National Park. The Klickitat basin is a mile wide. Into it two steep ice-streams cascade from the summit, and avalanches fall from a cliff which rises two thousand feet between them. (See pp.98and99.)

photographNorth Peak of Mount Adams, with The Mountaineers beginning their ascent, in 1911. Their route led up the ridge seen here, which divides Lava glacier, on the left, from Adams glacier, on extreme right.

The glacier is more than two miles long. It ends at an elevation of less than six thousand feet, covered with debris from a large medial moraine formed by the junction of the two tributary glaciers. Like the other Mount Adams glaciers, and indeed nearly all glaciers in the northern hemisphere, it is shrinking, and has built several moraines on each side. These extend half a mile below its present snout, and the inner moraines are underlaid with ice, showing the retreat has been recent.

South of the Klickitat glacier, a part of the original surface of the peak remains in the great Ridge of Wonders. Rising a thousand feet above the floor of Hellroaring Canyon, which was formerly occupied by Mazama glacier, now withdrawn to the slope above, this is the finest observation point on the mountain. "The wonderful views of the eastern precipices and glaciers," says Reid, "the numerous dikes, the well preserved parasitic cone of Little Mount Adams, and the curious forms of volcanic bombs scattered over its surface entirely justify the name Mr. Rusk has given to this ridge."

photographSnow Bridge over Killing Creek, north of Mount Adams.

Adams glacier, upon the northwest slope, with a length of three miles, is the largest on the mountain. This and the two beautiful ice streams on the northeast, named after Prof. W. D. Lyman, are notable for their ice-falls, half-mile drops of tumbling, frozen rivers.

The naming of the mountain was a result of the movement started by Hall J. Kelley, the Oregon enthusiast, in 1839. The northwestern snow-peaks, so far as shown in maps of the period, bore the names given byVancouver as part of his annexation for George III. The utility, beauty and historic fitness of the significant Indian place names did not occur to a generation busy in ousting the Indian from his land; but our grandfathers remembered George III. Kelley and other patriotic men of the time proposed to call the Cascades the "Presidents' Range," and to christen the several snow-peaks for individual ex-presidents of the United States. But the second quarter of the last century knew little about Oregon, and cared less. The well-meant but premature effort failed, and the only names of the presidents which have stuck are Adams and Jefferson. Lewis and Clark mistook Mount Adams for St. Helens, and estimated it "perhaps the highest pinnacle in America." The Geological Survey has found its height to be 12,307 feet. Mount Adams was first climbed in 1854 by a party in which were Col. B. F. Shaw, Glenn Aiken and Edward J. Allen.

photographNorth-side Cleaver, with Lava glacier on left. This sharp spine was climbed by The Mountaineers and the North Yakima Y. M. C. A. party in 1911.

Looking across Adams glacier, northwest side of Mount Adams, from ridge shown above.

The world was indebted for its first knowledge of Mount St. Helens to Vancouver. Its name is one of the batch which he fastened in 1792 upon our Northwestern landmarks. These honored a variety of persons, ranging from Lord St. Helens, the diplomat, and pudgy Peter Rainier, of the British Admiralty, down to members of the explorer's crew.

boat on Spirit Lake with Mt St Helens behind"The Mountain that Was 'God'," the great peak which the Indians reverenced and named "Tacoma," seen above the clouds of a rainy day, from the summit of Mount Adams, distant forty miles."This," said a well-known lecturer, as thepicture was thrown upon his screen, "is thescene the angels look down upon!"

"The Mountain that Was 'God'," the great peak which the Indians reverenced and named "Tacoma," seen above the clouds of a rainy day, from the summit of Mount Adams, distant forty miles."This," said a well-known lecturer, as thepicture was thrown upon his screen, "is thescene the angels look down upon!"

"This," said a well-known lecturer, as thepicture was thrown upon his screen, "is thescene the angels look down upon!"

The youngest of the Cascade snow-peaks, St. Helens is also the most symmetrical in its form, and to many of its admirers the most beautiful. Unlike Hood and Adams, it does not stand upon the narrow summit of one ofthe Cascade ranges, but rises west of the main ridges of that system from valley levels about one thousand feet above the sea. Surrounded by comparatively low ridges, it thus presents its perfect and impressive cone for almost its entire height of ten thousand feet.

photographNorthwest slope of Mount Adams, with Adams glacier, three miles long, the largest on the mountain. It has an ice-fall of two thousand feet. The low-lying reservoir of Pinnacle glacier is on extreme right, and the head of Lava glacier on left.

The mountain is set well back from the main traveled roads, in the great forest of southwestern Washington. It is the center of a fine lake and river district which attracts sportsmen as well as mountain climbers. A large company visiting it must carry in supplies and camp equipment, but small parties may find accommodation at Spirit Lake on the north, and Peterson's ranch on Lewis River, south of the peak. The first is four, the second is eight, miles from the snow line. Visitors from Portland, Tacoma or Seattle, bound for the north side, leave the railway at Castle Rock, whence a good automobile road (forty-eight miles) leads to the south side of Spirit Lake. Peterson's may be reached by road from Woodland (forty-five miles) or from Yacolt (thirty miles). Well-marked trails lead from either base to camping grounds at timber line. The mountain is climbed by a long, easy slope on the south, or by a much steeper path on the north.

Like Mount Adams, St. Helens is largely built of lava, but the outflows have been more recent here than upon or near the greater peak. The volcano was in eruption several times between 1830 and 1845. The sky at Vancouverwas often darkened, and ashes were carried as far as The Dalles. To these disturbances, probably, are due the great outflows of new lava covering the south and west sides of the mountain, and much of the country between it and the North Fork of Lewis River. The molten stream flowed westward to Goat Mountain and the "Buttes," of which it made islands; threw a dike across a watercourse and created Lake Merrill; and turning southward, filled valleys and overwhelmed good forest with sheets of basalt. Upon the slope just north of Peterson's, a great synclinal thus buried presents one of the latest pages in the volcanic history of the Columbia basin.

photographMount Adams from the southwest, with White Salmon glacier (left) and Avalanche glacier (right) flowing from a common source, the cleft between North and Middle Peaks. The latter, however, derives most of its support from slopes farther to right. Note the huge terminal moraines built by these glaciers in their retreat. Pinnacle glacier is on extreme left.

mapEnlargeMount St. Helens, elevation 10,000 feet.

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Many hours may be spent with interest upon this lava bed. It is an area of the wildest violence, cast in stone. Swift, ropy streams, cascades, whirling eddies, all have been caught in their course. "Devil's Punch Bowl," "Hell's Kitchen," "Satan's Stairway" are suggestive phrases of local description. The underground galleries here are well worth visiting. Tree tunnels and wells abound. Most important of all, the struggle seen everywhere of the forest to gain a foothold on this iron surface illustrates Nature's method of hiding so vast and terrible a callus upon her face. It is evident that thehealing of the wound began as soon as the lava cooled, and that, while still incomplete, it is unceasingly prosecuted. (See p.111.)

Scenes in the canyon of the North Fork of Lewis River, fed by the glaciers of Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens.

The first volcanic dust from the uneasy crater of St. Helens had no sooner lodged in some cleft opened by the contraction of cooling than a spore or seed carried by the wind or dropped by a bird made a start toward vegetation. Failing moisture, and checked by lack of soil, the lichen or grass or tiny shrub quickly yielded its feeble existence in preparation for its successor. The procession of rain and sun encouraged other futile efforts to find rootage. Each of these growthslengthened by its decay the life of the next. With winter came frost, scaling flakes from the hard surface, or penetrating the joints and opening fissures in the basalt. Further refuge was thus made ready for the dust and seeds and moisture of another season. The moss and plants were promoters as well as beneficiaries of this disintegration. Their smallest rootlets found the water in the heart of the rocks, and growing strong upon it, shattered their benefactors.

river and mountain in far distanceCOPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORDColumbia River and Mount Adams, seen from Hood River, Oregon."And forests ranged like armies, round and roundAt feet of mountains of eternal snow;And valleys all alive with happy sound,—The song of birds; swift streams' delicious flow;The mystic hum of million things that grow."—Helen Hunt Jackson.

COPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORDColumbia River and Mount Adams, seen from Hood River, Oregon."And forests ranged like armies, round and roundAt feet of mountains of eternal snow;And valleys all alive with happy sound,—The song of birds; swift streams' delicious flow;The mystic hum of million things that grow."—Helen Hunt Jackson.

"And forests ranged like armies, round and roundAt feet of mountains of eternal snow;And valleys all alive with happy sound,—The song of birds; swift streams' delicious flow;The mystic hum of million things that grow."—Helen Hunt Jackson.

photographCOPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.Southwest side of Mount Adams, reflected in Trout Lake, twelve miles south of the mountain.

Scenes on great lava field south of Mount St. Helens. The lodgepole pine thicket above shows struggle of forest to gain a foothold on the rich soil slowly forming over new volcanic rock. The peak itself, with stunted forest at its base, is seen next; and below, one of many "tree tunnels," formed when the lava flowed over or around a tree, taking a perfect cast of its bark.

Soon more ambitious enterprises were undertaken. Huckleberry bushes, fearless even of so unfriendly a surface, started from everydepression among the rocks. The first small trees appeared. Weakling pines, dwarf firs and alders, shot up for a few feet of hurried growth in the spring moisture, taking the unlikely chance of surviving the later drought. Here and there a seedling outlasted the long, dry summer, and began to be a real tree. Quickly exhausting its little handful of new earth, the daring upstart must have perished had not the melting snows brought help. They filled the hollows with wash from the higher slopes. The treelets found that their day had come, and seizing upon these rich but shallow soil beds, soon covered them with thickets of spindling lodgepole pines and deciduous brush. Such pygmy forests are at length common upon this great field of torn and decaying rock, and all are making their contributions of humus year by year to the support of future tree giants. These will rise by survival of the fittest as the forest floor deepens and spreads.

photographLava Flume south of Mount St. Helens, a tunnel several miles in length, about twenty feet high and fifteen feet wide.

photographEntrance to Lava Cave shown above. Note strata in roof, showing successive lava flows; also ferns growing from roof.

photographTelephotograph of Mount St. Helens, from the lower part of Portland, with the summit peaks of Mount Rainier-Tacoma in distance on left, and the Willamette River in foreground.

St. Helens, although much visited, has not yet been officially surveyed or mapped. Its glaciers are not named, nor has the number of true ice-streams been determined. Those on the south and southwest are insignificant. Elsewhere, the glaciers are short and broad, and with one exception, occupy shallow beds. On the southeast, there is a remarkable cleft, shown on page115, which is doubtless due to volcanic causes rather than erosion, and from which the largest glacier issues. Another typical glacier, distinguished by the finest crevasses and ice-falls on the peak, tumbles down a steep, shallow depression on the north slope, west of the battered parasitic cone of "Black Butte." West of this glacier, in turn, ridges known as the "Lizard" and the "Boot" mark the customary north-side path to the summit. (See p.118.)Beyond these landmarks, on the west side of the peak, a third considerable glacier feeds South Toutle River. The ravines cut by this stream will repay a visit. (See p.116.)

photographCOPYRIGHT, JAS. WAGGENER, JR.Mount St. Helens, from Chelatchie Prairie on Lewis River, distance twenty miles. Shows a typical farm clearing in the forest.

photographMount St. Helens, seen from Twin Buttes, twenty miles away, across the Cascades. View shows the remarkable cleft or canyon on the southeast face of the peak.

The slopes not covered with new lava sheets and dikes exhibit, below the snow-line, countless bombs hurled up from the crater, with great fields of pumice embedding huge angular rocks that tell a story not written on our other peaks. These hard boulders, curiously different from the soft materials in which they lie, were fragments of the tertiary platform on which the cone was erected. Torn off by the volcano, as it enlarged its bore, they were shot out without melting or change in substance. On every hand is proof that this now peaceful snow-mountain, which resembles nothing else so much as a well-filled saucer of ice cream, had a hot temper in its youth, and has passed some bad days even since the coming of the white man.

The mountain was first climbed in August, 1853, by a party which included the same T. J. Dryer who, a year later, took part in the first ascent of Mount Hood. In a letter toThe Oregonianhe said the party consisted of "Messrs. Wilson, Smith, Drew and myself." They ascended the south side. The other slopes were long thought too steep to climb, but in 1893 Fred G. Plummer, of Tacoma, now Geographer of the United States Forest Service, ascended the north side. His party included Leschi, a Klickitat Indian, probably the first of his superstitious race to scale a snow-peak. The climbers foundevidence of recent activity in two craters on the north slope, and photographed a curious "diagonal moraine," as regular in shape as a railway embankment, which connected the border moraines of a small glacier. The north side has since seen frequent ascents.

photographCanyons of South Toutle River, west side of St. Helens. These vast trenches in the soft pumice show by their V shape that they have been cut by streams from the glaciers above, rather than by the glaciers themselves, which, on this young peak, have probably never had a much greater extension.

The Mazamas, who had climbed St. Helens from the south in 1898, again ascended it in 1908, climbing by the Lizard and Boot. This outing furnished the most stirring chapter in the annals of American mountaineering.

photographLower Toutle Canyon, seen on left above. Note shattered volcanic bomb.

photographNortheast side of Mount St. Helens, from elevation of 6,000 feet, with Black Butte on the right.

photographThe Mazamas on summit of St. Helens shortly before sunset. The rocks showing above the snow are parts of the rim of the extinct crater. Mount Adams is seen, thirty-five miles away, on the right, while Rainier-Tacoma is forty-five miles north. Photograph taken at 7:15 p. m. The party did not get back to their camp till long after midnight.

The north-side route proved unexpectedly hard. After an all-day climb, the party reached the summit only at seven o'clock. The descent after nightfall required seven hours. The risk was great. Over the collar of icenear the summit, at a grade of more than sixty degrees, the twenty-five men and women slowly crept in steps cut by the leaders, and clutching a single fifty-foot rope. Later came the bombardment of loose rocks, as the party scattered down the slope. I quote from an account by Frank B. Riley, secretary of the club, who was one of the leaders:

The safety of the entire party was in the keeping of each member. One touch of hysteria, one slip of the foot, one instant's loss of self-control, would have precipitated the line, like a row of bricks, on the long plunge down the ice cliff. Eight times the party stood poised on its scanty foothold while the rope was lowered. When, after an hour and a half, its last member stepped in safety upon the rocks, there yet lay before it five hours of work ere the little red eyes below should widen into welcoming campfires.Over great ridges, down into vast snowfields, for hours they plunged and slid, while scouts ahead shouted back warning of the crevasses. On, out of the icy clutch of the silent mountain, they plodded. And then, at last, the timber, and the fires and the hot drinks and the warm blankets and the springy hemlock boughs!

Over great ridges, down into vast snowfields, for hours they plunged and slid, while scouts ahead shouted back warning of the crevasses. On, out of the icy clutch of the silent mountain, they plodded. And then, at last, the timber, and the fires and the hot drinks and the warm blankets and the springy hemlock boughs!

photographNorth side of St. Helens in winter, seen from Coldwater Ridge, overlooking Spirit Lake. Shows the long ridge called "the Lizard," because of its shape, with "the Boot" above it. On the northeast slope is "Black Butte," probably a secondary crater.

photographSt. Helens, north side, seen from one mile below snow line. Note the slight progress made by the forest upon the scant soil of the pumice ridges; also, how greatly the angle of the sides, as viewed here at the foot of the peak, differs from that shown in Dr. Lauman's fine picture taken on Coldwater Ridge, five miles north. Both show the mountain from the same direction, but the near view gives no true idea of its steepness. Black Butte is on the left.

Glacier scenes, north side of Mount St. Helens, east of the "Lizard."

Even this was not the most noteworthy adventure of the outing. One evening, while the Mazamas gathered about their campfire at Spirit Lake, a haggard man dragged himself out of the forest, and told of an injured comrade lying helpless on the other side of the peak. The messenger and two companions—Swedish loggers, all three—had crossed the mountain the morning before. After they gained the summit and began the descent, a plunging rock had struck one of the men, breaking his leg. His friends had dragged him down to the first timber, and while one kept watch, the other had encircled the mountain, in search of aid from the Mazamas.

Immediately a relief party of seven strong men, led by C. E. Forsyth of Castle Rock, Washington, started back over the trailless route by which the messenger had come. All night they scaled ridges, climbed into and out of canyons, waded icy streams. Before dawn they reached the wounded laborer. Mr. Riley says:

It was impossible to carry the man back through the wild country around the peak. Below, the first cabin on the Lewis River lay beyond a moat of forbidding canyons. Above slanted the smooth slopes of St. Helens. Placing the injured man upon a litter of canvas and alpine stocks, they began the ascent of the mountain with their burden. The day dawned and grew old, and still these men crawled upward in frightful, body-breaking struggle. Twelve hours passed, and they had no food and no sleep, save as they fell unconscious downward in the snow, as they did many times, from fatigue and lack of nourishment. At four o'clock, Anderson was again on the summit. Then, without rest, came the descent to the north. Down precipitous cliffs of ice they lowered him, as tenderly as might be; down snow-slopes seared with crevasses, shielding him from the falling rocks; over ridges of ragged lava, until in the deepening darkness of the second night they found themselves again at timber. But in the net-work of canyons they had selected the wrong one, and were lost. Here, at three o'clock, they were found by a second relief party, and guided over a painful five-mile journey home.

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