Page:The Overland Monthly Volume 56 Issue 2.djvu/1

 AUGUST 1910

No. 2 OVERLAND MONTHLY Vol. LVI

Founded 1866 Bret Harte San Francisco

TO MT. RAINIER'S LOFTY SUMMIT

BY WILLIAM THORNTON PROSSER

Photographs by Asahel Curtis

OUNTAIN CLIMBING may be classed as play, but the feat of leading to the summit of Mt. Rainier, tallest peak in the United States proper, a party of more than three score largely inexperienced but am-

between Puget Sound and Ocean. The Olympic heights shield some of the wildest regions on the American Continent, abounding in fish and game. Last year the Mountaineers prepared for the Rainier climb of this season by as- the Pacific bitious men and women, is more likely to cending Mt. Baker, snow-encrusted for be placed in the realm of labor. The story of how the Mountaineers' Society, of the courtless centuries, rough and jagged, but not within 4,000 feet the height of Mt. State of Washington, numbering sixty- Rainier. Mt. Baker lies one hundred and two in the party, ascended almost three thirty-five miles to the northward of the miles in the air and returned from Rai- higher peak. nier's summit without hitch or accident, in close to record time, is interesting in demonstrating modern mountain climbing Mt. Rainier is the pride, of the State of Washington. Rising in pristine white- and symmetrie grandeur ness to a methods, as well as-the power of discipline height of 14,528 feet, it is the tallest emi- and organization. This is the largest party nence from Mt. St. Elias and Mt. Mc- ever attempting the summit of any of the Kinley in Alaska to Popocatepetl and the Northwest's snow-capped peaks. The Mountaineers' Association, at the head of which is Meany, occupying the chair of history in the University of Washington, and a writer Mexican volcanoes far down near the ter- minus of the North American Continent. Each summer season small parties brave the hardships and dangers of the Rainier feet Prof. Edmond S. climb to see spread at their the of Northwest history, has been in exist- greater part of a State, Puget Sound, ence only three years. Its plan of organi- with its thousand miles of shore line and zation is similar to that of the Mazama (Mexican for mountain climbing) Club of Portland, Ore., which innumerable bays and islets, far in the west the dim blue haze that hangs over the Pacific Ocean, while to the northward has ascended most of the tallest peaks in Washington in British Columbia the white saw-teeth and Oregon, and to the California Sierra Club. Two years ago the Mountaineers of the Selkirks are plainly outlined, and to the south Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, across lesser initiated their organization by ascending the Oregon border, and a dozen the highest peak in the Olympic Moun- tains, that wild, broken range that lies heights appear more like sugar-coated hummocks than towering mountains. Google Original from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Digitized by