miles, even from far Alaska. Then they too grow rich and spend their

money on red cloth and trinkets. About a thousand Indians are
required as pickers at the Snoqualmie ranch alone, and a lively and

merry picture they make in the field, arrayed in bright, showy
calicoes, lowering the rustling vine pillars with incessant song-singing

and fun. Still more striking are their queer camps on the
edges of the fields or over on the river bank, with the firelight

shining on their wild jolly faces. But woe to the ranch should fire-water get there!
But the chief attractions here are not found in the hops, but in

trout-fishing and bear-hunting, and in the two fine falls on the
river. Formerly the trip from Seattle was a hard one, over corduroy

roads; now it is reached in a few hours by rail along the shores of
Lake Washington and Lake Squak, through a fine sample section of the

forest and past the brow of the main Snoqualmie Fall. From the hotel
at the ranch village the road to the fall leads down the right bank of

the river through the magnificent maple woods I have mentioned
elsewhere, and fine views of the fall may be had on that side, both

from above and below. It is situated on the main river, where it
plunges over a sheer precipice, about two hundred and forty feet high,

in leaving the level meadows of the ancient lake basin. In a general
way it resembles the well-known Nevada Fall in Yosemite, having the

same twisted appearance at the top and the free plunge in numberless
comet-shaped masses into a deep pool seventy-five or eighty yards in

diameter. The pool is of considerable depth, as is shown by the
radiating well-beaten foam and mist, which is of a beautiful rose

color at times, of exquisitefineness of tone, and by the heavy waves
that lash the rocks in front of it.

Though to a Californian the height of this fall would not seem great,
the volume of water is heavy, and all the surroundings are delightful.

The maple forest, of itself worth a long journey, the beauty of the
river-reaches above and below, and the views down the valley afar over

the mighty forests, with all its lovely trimmings of ferns and
flowers, make this one of the most interesting falls I have ever seen.

The upper fall is about seventy-five feet high, with bouncing rapids
at head and foot, set in a romantic dell thatched with dripping mosses

and ferns and embowered in dense evergreens and blooming bushes, the
distance to it from the upper end of the meadows being about eight

miles. The road leads through majestic woods with ferns ten feet high
beneath some of the thickets, and across a gravelly plain deforested

by fire many years ago. Orange lilies are plentiful, and handsome
shining mats of the kinnikinic, sprinkled with bright scarlet berries.

From a place called "Hunt's," at the end of the wagon road, a trail
leads through lush, dripping woods (never dry) to Thuja and Mertens,

Menzies, and Douglas spruces. The ground is covered with the best
moss-work of the moist lands of the north, made up mostly of the

various species of hypnum, with some liverworts, marchantia,
jungermannia, etc., in broad sheets and bosses, where never a dust

particle floated, and where all the flowers, fresh with mist and
spray, are wetter than water lilies. The pool at the foot of the fall

is a place surpassingly lovely to look at, with the enthusiastic rush
and song of the falls, the majestic trees overhead leaning over the

brink like listeners eager to catch every word of the white refreshing
waters, the delicate maidenhairs and aspleniums with fronds outspread

gathering the rainbow sprays, and the myriads of hooded mosses, every
cup fresh and shining.

XX
An Ascent of Mount Rainier

Ambitious climbers, seeking adventures and opportunities to test their
strength and skill, occasionally attempt to penetrate the wilderness

on the west side of the Sound, and push on to the summit of Mount
Olympus. But the grandest excursion of all to be make hereabouts is

to Mount Rainier, to climb to the top of its icy crown. The mountain
is very high[29], fourteen thousand four hundred feet, and laden with

glaciers that are terribly roughened and interrupted by crevasses and
ice cliffs. Only good climbers should attempt to gain the summit, led

by a guide of proved nerve and endurance. A good trail has been cut
through the woods to the base of the mountain on the north; but the

summit of the mountain never has been reached from this side, though
many brave attempts have been made upon it.

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 memorableascent, 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 magnificentprairie 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, standing" target="_blank" title="prep.&conj.虽然；还是">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 correspondingportion 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, sweepingupward in belts

of varying width, composedmainly 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. Every one of these parks, great and small, is

a garden filled knee-deep with fresh, lovely flowers of every hue, the
most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine

gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.
We arrived at the Cloud Camp at noon, but no clouds were in sight,

save a few gauzy ornamental wreaths adrift in the sunshine. Out of
the forest at last there stood the mountain, wholly unveiled, awful in

bulk and majesty, filling all the view like a separate, new-born
world, yet withal so fine and so beautiful it might well fire the

dullest observer to desperateenthusiasm. Long we gazed in silent
admiration, buried in tall daisies and anemones by the side of a

snowbank. Higher we could not go with the animals and find food for
them and wood for our own campfires, for just beyond this lies the

region of ice, with only here and there an open spot on the ridges in
the midst of the ice, with dwarf alpine plants, such as saxifrages and

drabas, which reach far up between the glaciers, and low mats of the
beautiful bryanthus, while back of us were the gardens and abundance

of everything that heart could wish. Here we lay all the afternoon,
considering the lilies and the lines of the mountains with reference

to a way to the summit.