40 The Mountaineer 
NACHES PASS 
Epmonp 8S. Meany 
During the years 1910, 1911, and 1912, the Mountaineers 
have seen seven passes through the Cascade Range. Three of 
these are used by railroads, the others by Indians, miners, and 
cattle drivers. The one that is probably most historic of all 
the passes, we approached but did not actually visit during the 
outing of 1912. This is Naches Pass, the trail which we left 
at the river ford and proceeded to Crow Creek Pass, about six 
miles south of the more famous route. 
Many of the passes were used by Indians for years beyond 
computation. As near as I can make out, the first white man 
to cross the range was Lieutenant Robert E. Johnson who left 
Nisqually on May 19th and returned to that fort on July 15, 
1841. He had traveled one thousand miles, visited the mis- 
sionary and fur-trading posts, examined the country, and 
crossed the mountains twice by the same pass. I believe that 
pass was the Naches. The element of doubt lies in the fact 
that the report of the Wilkes Expedition, in which Johnson 
was an officer, refers to the river he followed on the west side 
as “Smalocho” and the one on the east side as “Spipen.” I 
‘an not wholly reconcile these with present-day names of rivers. 
A sort of triple-headed climax was attained in the history 
of Naches Pass in the year 1853. In August of that eventful 
year Theodore Winthrop used that rough trail of Indians in 
crossing from Nisqually to the Yakima Valley. In his delight- 
ful book, ‘Canoe and saddle,” he tells his experiences in a 
chapter headed “Via mala.” His spelling is ‘“Nachchese,” but 
his descriptions are gripping to one who has been over any 
part of his trail. He met Captain George B. McClellan who 
had been trying the same pass to find a possible route for a 
railroad. That engineer pronounced the pass impossible and 
declared that he would search the Snoqualmie and other passes. 
His search was a failure. 
Earlier in that year Nelson Sargeant had gone over Naches 
Pass and on out upon the plains to meet his folks who were 
