The Mountaineer ily 
area, about five square miles, a park-like country covered with 
grass and flowers and clumps of firs and many a little lake left 
by the melting snow banks. Here Mr. Bennett, who had left 
the pack train some days earlier to scout the trip from Goat 
Rock to the pass, met us, and our company of sixty-four was 
complete. Here too, began that fine series of views. From 
every vantage point the eye turned back to Mt. Rainier rising 
in radiant majesty to the north; the higher we climbed the 
higher rose the mountain, the more mighty its proportions. 
The Tatoosh range shrank to foot hills, the Sluiskins scarcely 
equalled them. From west of Paradise valley and the Nisqually 
elacier we could see across the Cowlitz to little Tahoma and 
the White glacier, and could trace on the skyline very nearly 
the course the Mountaineers took in 1909, while the regular 
tourist route to the summit lay exposed as on a map. Soon 
Mt. Adams in the other direction began to lft its great white 
dome above Old Snowy and the Goat Rocks and when we 
reached the ridge of Hogback Mountain three days later the 
shinine cone of St. Helens stood forth in the west, and from 
that time on we traveled within a vast triangle marked at its 
corners by three towering isolated peaks. For fourteen days 
we walked and camped at an average elevation of one mile 
above the sea. 
At Cowltz Pass we turned directly south. Thus far the 
trail had been clear, a mere introduction to the journey, but 
of the sixty miles between the pass and Mt. Adams nearly 
forty miles lay through pathless country and was covered by 
sending men ahead to scout and blaze the way, for the trails 
shown on the map were either fragmentary or had become 
obliterated. 
Twice we were allowed an unexpected day of rest, once 
at Milridge Creek and once at Shoe Lake, partly to give time 
for careful trail work, and partly owing to the serious illness 
of Paul Kuhnhausen, one of the packers. For six days he 
lay beside the stream at Milridge Creek protected by a tent 
of fir boughs, and nursed by willing hands, for men of the 
party stayed behind and watched beside him until friends 
eame with Dr. La Motte, our comrade of the earher part of the 
trip. Then the sick man was earried out on a stretcher to 
his brother’s home at Lewis and later made a complete re- 
covery. 
