MOUNT RAINIER 



departed. Acres of meadow land, still soft with snow 

 water and musical with rills and brooks flowing in 

 uncertain courses over the deep, rich turf, are beauti- 

 ful with lilies, which seemed woven in a cloth of gold 

 about the borders of the lingering snow banks. We 

 are near the upper limit of timber growth, where 

 park-like openings, with thickets of evergreens, give a 

 special charm to the mountain side. The morainal 

 ridge nearest the glacier is forest-covered on its outer 

 slope, while the descent to the glacier is a rough, deso- 

 late bank of stones and dirt. The glacier has evidently 

 but recently shrunk away from this ridge, which was 

 formed along its border by stones brought from a 

 bold cliff that rises sheer from the ice a mile upstream. 

 Standing on the morainal ridge overlooking the gla- 

 cier, one has to the eastward an unobstructed view of 

 the desolate and mostly stone and dirt covered ice. 

 Across the glacier another embankment can be seen, 

 similar to the one on the west, and, like it, recording a 

 recent lowering of the surface of the glacier of about 

 150 feet. Beyond the glacier are extremely bold and 

 rugged mountains, scantily clothed with forests nearly 

 to their summits. The position of the timber line 

 shows that the bare peaks above are between 8,000 

 and 9,000 feet high. Looking southward, up the gla- 

 cier, we have a glimpse into the wild amphitheater in 

 which it has its source. The walls of the great hol- 

 low in the mountain side rise in seemingly vertical 

 precipices about 4,000 feet high. Far above is a shin- 

 ing, snow-covered peak, which Willis named the 

 Liberty Cap. It is one of the culminating points of 

 Mount Rainier, but not the actual summit. Its ele- 

 vation is about 14,300 feet above the sea. Toward the 

 west the view is limited by the forest-covered morainal 

 ridges near at hand and by the precipitous slopes 

 beyond, which lead to a northward-projecting spur of 

 Mount Rainier, known as the Mother Mountains. 

 This, our first view of Mount Rainier near at hand, has 



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