8 



THE MOUNTAINEER. 



Now it is as much as the writer's 

 life is worth to make the suggestion 

 in a Seattle publication, but it is his 

 solemn conviction (it is even a mat- 

 ter of ethics, morality, and religion 

 with him) that the same mistake ex- 

 ists in regard to the name of our 

 great king mountain. Rainier was 

 an insignificant English naval officer 

 and his name was attached to the 

 subliniest object on the American 

 continent by the doughty and self- 

 opinionated Briton Vancouver, with 

 true British conceit. Tacoma, or 

 rather Tahoma, was the Puyallup 

 name from immemorial time, mean- 

 ing, according to same, the mountain, 

 the Supreme Mountain, and accord- 

 ing to others, the breast of the milk- 

 white waters. 



We would venture to ask if it 

 would not be a fine thing for the 

 Mountaineers to consider seriously 

 an attempt to restore these beauti- 

 ful and significant native names 

 thrust aside by the first explorers. 

 Those beautiful names, Seattle, Ta- 

 coma, Spokane, Walla Walla, Yak- 

 ima, Snoqualmie, Chelan, Olequa, 

 Cowlitz, Multnomah! The more of 

 them we can keep the better. 



But please pardon this long digres- 

 sion, drawn on by one of the writer's 

 favorite hobbies. 



We find ourselves at the foot of 

 Kulshan, the scene of the last climb 

 of the Mazamas. This mountain, 

 though only the third, possibly only 

 the fourth in elevation of our great 

 peaks, is considered the hardest of 

 all to climb. It is certainly one of 

 the most magnificent in appearance, 

 with its peculiar spotlessness of 

 snowy shrouds and its commanding 

 location, within the range of all 

 vision upon the lower Sound. But 

 the dense forests, the craggy and ir- 

 regular ridges out of which the sum- 

 mit rises, and the almost perpendic- 

 ular declivities which guard it as a 

 sacred shrine, combine to render it 

 the most difficult and dangerous of 

 the great peaks. As a consequence 



the Mazamas made but a partial suc- 

 cess of the climb of 1906, and those 

 who did attain the longed-for height 

 describe it as having been a perilous 

 experience. Baker is somewhat re- 

 markable for the great snow-fall, and 

 its appearance from the wide ex- 

 panses of the Gulf of Georgia or any 

 of the exquisite islands of the San 

 Juan group is striking and magni- 

 ficent. It seems far in excess of its 

 accepted elevation of 10,600 feet. 



Near Baker (Kulshan, I prefer to 

 say), on the east is the bold crag of 

 Shuksan, not equal in height or 

 snow fall, yet one of the steepest and 

 most picturesque of all the wintry' 

 brotherhood. So far as we know the 

 first and only ascent of this mountain 

 was made in the summer of 1906 by 

 Ashabel Curtis and W. Montelius 

 Price. 



Between Shuksan and Glacier 

 Peak is a perfect wilderness of ser- 

 rated peaks, more numerous than 

 anywhere else in the entire range. 

 Here, too, are more glaciers than in 

 all the rest of the United States, 

 aside from Alaska, put together. 

 Along Thunder Creek, the Suiattle, 

 the Skagit, the Stehekin, and the 

 Methow, are the mightiest master- 

 pieces of moimtain, lake, canyon, 

 river, and cataract scenery in the en- 

 tire state. Here are Horseshoe Basin, 

 Agnes Canyon, and North Star Park. 

 Here is Chelan, "beautiful water," 

 the diamond setting of the stupen- 

 dous circlet of the granitic and vol- 

 canic hills. Most of the snowy peaks 

 in that vast sweep of mountains are 

 nameless, yet such is their number 

 that I have been told by a miner that 

 from one of the loftiest he had count- 

 ed two hundred distinct snow moun- 

 tains. The general elevation is about 

 eight or nine thousand feet. 



The finest peaks are Glacier Peak, 

 I\rt. Sahale, Bonanza Peak, North 

 Star Mountain, Agnes Mountain and 

 Castle Peak. These are about ten 

 thousand feet high, though Glacier 

 Peak rises eight hundred feet higher. 



