STEEP TRAILS 



Last summer I gained the summit from the 

 south side, in a day and a half from the tim- 

 ber-line, without encountering any desperate 

 obstacles that could not in some way be passed 

 in good weather. I was accompanied by Keith, 

 the artist, Professor Ingraham, and five am- 

 bitious young climbers from Seattle. We were 

 led by the veteran mountaineer and guide 

 Van Trump, of Yelm, who many years before 

 guided General Stevens in his memorable 

 ascent, and later Mr. Bailey, of Oakland. With 

 a cumbersome abundance of campstools and 

 blankets we set out from Seattle, traveling 

 by rail as far as Yelm Prairie, on the Tacoma 

 and Oregon road. Here we made our first camp 

 and arranged with Mr. Longmire, a farmer 

 in the neighborhood, for pack and saddle ani- 

 mals. The noble King Mountain was in full 

 view from here, glorifying the bright, sunny 

 day with his presence, rising in godlike ma- 

 jesty over the woods, with the magnificent 

 prairie as a foreground. The distance to the 

 mountain from Yelm in a straight line is per- 

 haps fifty miles; but by the mule and yellow- 

 jacket trail we had to follow it is a hundred 

 miles. For, notwithstanding a portion of this 

 trail runs in the ah 1 , where the wasps work 

 hardest, it is far from being an air-line as com- 

 monly understood. 



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