2() The Mountaineer 
with the strange rocky pinnacles above, the smooth, brilliantly 
colored slopes of Tieton Peak ahead, and the valley dropping 
steep away below. The pass reached at 7000 feet, another fieid 
of soft snow in which we sank knee-deep took us into the 
valley of the South Fork of the Tieton and we began to look 
for Surprise Lake, which we were told was to be our campine- 
eround for the night. Perhaps there is a Surprise Lake, but 
our surprise was to come suddenly, near dusk, upon a camp- 
fire with Mr. Carr beside it and a bountiful hot dinner, to 
which we did speedy tribute, stopping not to remove grease- 
paint, black, white, or red. Here, on a bleak hillside, a place 
where only sheep could find subsistence, was the cache of six- 
teen hundred pounds of food left there a few weeks earlier by 
the packers. 
A steep climb of eight hundred feet brought us to a ridge 
overlooking the magnificent cirque at the head of the Khekitat. 
Skirting this we found ourselves again below the sharp scaling 
spires of the Goat Rocks. This passing of the south side and 
the climb the day before on the north furnished our only close 
acquaintance with this interesting group of mountains, a region 
little visited and well worth a summer’s outing. As we lunehed 
on the rocks before crossing to western slopes near Cispus Pass 
Mr. Bertsechi, forest ranger of that district, met us and for 
four days was our friend and adviser, guiding by shorter 
routes to the great mountain, through the region of the ghost 
trees. Among them a little spring like an oasis in the desert 
furnished site for a ranger’s eabin known as Short Trail Camp 
and here we spent the night. Next camp was at the Indian 
tepee on the vast table-land that slopes from Adams on the 
north and west. Here the Indian, perhaps for ages, has 
eamped in huckleberry season beside a clear, cold stream under 
the very shadow of the mountain. 
On the fifteenth day at noon, we reached the mountain 
camp, a typical little meadow-basin on Killing Creek on the 
north side of Mt. Adams at 6000 feet. Above was the lava 
ridge on which we were to climb between the Adams and the 
Lava glaciers. The commissary stream came leaping down 
in white spray under a thin snow-bridge, turned a right angle 
and dashed on to the valleys. On every hand were tiny lakelets 
furnishing fine laundry and swimming pools. Trees fringed 
