STEEP TRAILS 



miles without touching the ground. Around 

 the upper belt of the forest you may see gaps 

 where the ground has been cleared by ava 

 lanches of snow, thousands of tons in weight, 

 which, descending with grand rush and roar, 

 brush the trees from their paths like so many 

 fragile shrubs or grasses. 



At first the ascent is very gradual. The 

 mountain begins to leave the plain in slopes 

 scarcely perceptible, measuring from two to 

 three degrees. These are continued by easy 

 gradations mile after mile all the way to the 

 truncated, crumbling summit, where they 

 attain a steepness of twenty to twenty-five 

 degrees. The grand simplicity of these lines is 

 partially interrupted on the north subordinate 

 cone that rises from the side of the main cone 

 about three thousand feet from the summit. 

 This side cone, past which your way to the 

 summit lies, was active after the breaking-up 

 of the main ice-cap of the glacial period, as 

 shown by the comparatively unwasted crater 

 in which it terminates and by streams of fresh- 

 looking, unglaciated lava that radiate from it 

 as a center. 



The main summit is about a mile and a half 

 in diameter from southwest to northeast, and 

 is nearly covered with snow and nv6, bounded 

 by crumbling peaks and ridges, among which 



52 



