38 The Mountaineer 
a wary watch over their companies, we zigzagged down without slip or 
misadventure. Below the snow a treacherous slope of steep ice, which 
brought into play ice-axes and life-lines, gave us our one taste of skilful 
mountaineering. 
Down on the floor of the glacier a few erevasses and snow-bridges 
lent variety for a while, but the most tedious part of the climb was 
this long ascent over the Hoh. Fortunately the overcast sky kept the 
morning cool, and our long line proceeded much more rapidly than the 
scouts of the previous day had anticipated. Near the base of the East 
Peak great crevasses opened, showing wonderful canyoned depths of 
green and blue ice veined with the brown of crushed rock; but none 
difficult to negotiate lay across our path. Towards the summit the 
snow pitched steeper and steeper, till we stood at last upon the narrow 
divide between the Hoh and Blue Glacier, beyond which, a mile and 
a half away, rose our perforce abandoned goal, the West Peak. How- 
ever, the East Peak, with its scanty record of ascents, seemed glory 
enough for one day. Stacking alpenstocks at the edge of the snow, we 
made the short rock climb and at noon stood upon the summit. 
The outlook from Olympus ean hardly be surpassed the world over. 
Close at hand rises the wilderness of dark, rugged peaks composing 
the Olympic Range. On every side is the gleam of snow or the splendid 
downward sweep of glaciers, whose canyons, circling wide among 
distant, forested hills, swing out of sight towards misty regions where 
lies the great Pacific. The Straits of Juan de Fuca show to the 
north, a streak of silver, and west and south, beyond the bold sum- 
mits of the sister peaks and the long, outlying white spurs stretching 
far into the forest country, sea fogs creep in and out among shadowy 
blue hills. Eastward, beyond the icy grandeur of the Olympies, hes 
the vast uplift of the Cascades, and still above them, shining in 
almost unearthly splendor, rise the giant voleanic cones, Baker, 
Rainier, Adams, and St. Helens, the great white watchers of the north. 
These glorious sentinels, lifting majestic heads high into the upper 
realms of light, glow with a lucent, vision-like beauty that lesser 
mountains never show, a more radiant serenity, as if they shone upon 
some borderland of the spirit, some coast of dreams where earth's 
beauty met the tides of things infinite and divine. 
Most of us had eyes only for these distant wonders, but more 
observant mountaineers made search among the rocks for the alpine 
flowers that brave such harsh, wintry conditions to bloom on Olympian 
heights. Blue polomonium was found, pentstemon, and the lovely, rare 
Flett violet, bright expressions of flower faith in the eternity of spring. 
Clouds and mist closing in upon us hastened our return. A short 
stretch of rock work, where we had to descend one at a time, held the 
party back, enabling those of us who went first to witness from the 
foot of the snow slope a rare spectacle of fun. Each ant-like figure 
