FIRST SUCCESSFUL ASCENT, 1870 



our entire stay upon the mountain, three days. Sluis- 

 kin was greatly chagrined at his failure, and promised 

 to bring each of us a sheep-skin the following summer, 

 a promise which he faithfully fulfilled. 



The glacial system of Takhoma is stupendous. The 

 mountain is really the focal centre and summit of a 

 region larger than Massachusetts, and the five large 

 rivers which water this region all find their sources in 

 its vast glaciers. They are the Cowlitz, which empties 

 into the Columbia ; the White, Puyallup, and Nis- 

 qually rivers, which empty into Puget Sound sixty, 

 forty, and twelve miles respectively north of Olympia ; 

 and the Wenass, which flows eastward through the 

 range and empties into the Yakima, which joins the 

 Columbia four hundred miles above its mouth. These 

 are all large streams from seventy to a hundred miles 

 in length. The White, Puyallup, and Cowlitz rivers 

 are each navigable for steamboats for some thirty 

 miles, and like the Nisqually show their glacial origin 

 by their white and turgid water, which indeed gives the 

 former its name. 



The southwestern sides of the mountain furnish the 

 glaciers which form the sources of the Nisqually, and 

 one of these, at Sluiskin's Falls, has been already de- 

 scribed. The main Nisqually glacier issues from the 

 deep abyss overhung by the vast rock along the face of 

 which our route of ascent lay, and extends in a narrow 

 and somewhat crooked canyon for two miles. The ice 

 at its extremity rises in an abrupt wall five hundred 

 feet high, and a noisy torrent pours out with great force 

 from beneath. This feature is characteristic of every 

 glacier. The main Cowlitz glacier issues from the south- 

 east side, just to the right of our ridge of ascent. Its 

 head fills a deep gorge at the foot of the eastern front 

 or face of the great mass of rock just referred to, and the 

 southern face of which overhangs the main Nisqually 

 glacier. Thus the heads of these glaciers are sepa- 

 rated only by this great rock, and are probably not 



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