MOUNT RAINIER 



these the snows lie deepest and the glaciers reach 

 their grandest development. Ice clad from head to 

 foot the year round, these giant peaks have become 

 known the country over as the noblest landmarks of 

 the Pacific Northwest. Foremost among them are 

 Mount Shasta, in California (14,162 feet) ; Mount 

 Hood, in Oregon (11,225 feet); Mount St. Helens 

 (9,697 feet), Mount Adams (12,307 feet), Mount Rainier 

 (14,408 feet), and Mount Baker (10,730 feet), in the 

 State of Washington. 



Easily king of all is Mount Rainier. Almost 250 

 feet higher than Mount Shasta, its nearest rival in 

 grandeur and in mass, it is overwhelmingly impres- 

 sive, both by the vastness of its glacial mantle and by 

 the striking sculpture of its cliffs. The total area of 

 its glaciers amounts to no less than 45 square miles, 

 an expanse of ice far exceeding that of any other single 

 peak in the United States. Many of its individual 

 ice streams are between 4 and 6 miles long and vie 

 in magnitude and in splendor with the most boasted 

 glaciers of the Alps. Cascading from the summit in 

 all directions, they radiate like the arms of a great 

 starfish. All reach down to the foot of the mountain 

 and some advance considerably beyond. 



As for the plea that these glaciers lie in a scarcely 

 opened, out-of-the-way region, a forbidding wilderness 

 as compared with maturely civilized Switzerland, it no 

 longer has the force it once possessed. Rainier's ice 

 fields can now be reached from Seattle or Tacoma, the 

 two principal cities of western Washington, in a com- 

 fortable day's journeying, either by rail or by auto- 

 mobile. The cooling sight of crevassed glaciers and 

 the exhilarating flower-scented air of alpine meadows 

 need no longer be exclusive pleasures, to be gained 

 only by a trip abroad. 



Mount Rainier stands on the west edge of the Cas- 

 cade Range, overlooking the lowlands that stretch to 

 Puget Sound. Seen from Seattle or Tacoma, 60 and 



