194 NARRATIVE OF 1853. 
There is a foot trail leading from the head of Lake Kitchelus to the head of the Snoqualmoo, 
forming the true Snoqualmoo Pass. The Indians represent this as practicable on foot with the 
greatest difficulty, and that it is seldom used. In Mr. Tinkham’s winter examination, the 
Indians who accompanied him reported this pass to be better and more free from snow than the 
Yakima Pass, but more obstructed by fallen timber, and therefore impracticable with horses. 
About May 15, 1856, Captain Smalley crossed this pass and found snow only for two or three 
miles—the greatest depth being four feet. 
On June 20, 1856, Major Van Bokkelen went up Snoqualmoo river from the falls, 35 miles, 
passing through prairie for five and a half miles, and the rest through forest greatly obstructed 
with timber. After passing the summit he lost the old Indian trail, and going for ten miles 
southerly by compass found another, and four miles further reached Lake Kitchelus. Ая this 
trail ended at the lake, he was obliged to force his way along its western shore for eight miles 
over rocks and timber, and at its lower end reached the foot of the Yakima Pass. The Indian 
trail passes around the east side of the lake. The whole ascent of the west slope is by a 
gradual rise. ; 
Some of the country on the western slopes of the Cascade mountains has a ready been 
described in the account of the routes across the Klikitat and Snoqualmoo Passes. This 
description will apply to all that lying among their western spurs, as far as at present explored. 
Since the period of the expedition the surveys of the Land Office, and reconnoissances by 
various parties of the Washington Territory volunteers and others, have given to these districts 
even a more favorable character than might have been expected. Though the greater portion 
of the mountain spurs are covered with a dense forest of gigantic growth, there are along all 
the rivers, and at conveniently short intervals, prairies varying in extent from one to ten square 
miles, with the most productive soil, and offering to the pioneer farms already made to his hand. 
They must thus serve as a nucleus for the commencement of settlements, and can support a 
very numerous population until its increase and the gradual consumption of timber requires 
the cultivation of the equally rich forest lands. Many, indeed, have already preferred to clear 
lands in the forest, and found it more profitable than to occupy prairies at some distance. 
Descending to the valley bordering Puget Sound, the Nisqually, Upper Chehalis, and Cowlitz 
rivers, we come to a vast extent of nearly level country, in which prairies are much more 
numerous and extensive, and where also the wooded bottom lands and often the uplands are all 
cultivable and valuable. This tract has a length, north and south, of 250 miles on the meridian 
of Vancouver; and allowing it only thirty miles of width, in order to allow for the water surface 
of the sound and for occasional mountains, we have an area between the Cascade and Coast 
mountains alone of 7,500 square miles, or 4,800,000 acres, This constitutes the valley of 
the Territory, and is continuous with the famed Willamette valley, of Oregon, which it quite 
equals or exceeds in produttiveness. One-third of this may’ be estimated as prairie, though 
much remains to be explored. с 
Forming an outlet to this on the west is the Chehalis valley, fifty miles long, passing through 
the coast range and continuing in a width averaging fifteen miles—480,000 acres. In the 
Willopah valley there are about 103,680 acres, and as much more level land along the coast, 
making, exclusive of the Columbia valley, 5,487,360 acres of level land between the Cascades 
and the ocean. | 
The Columbia, below the Cowlitz, presents to the traveller the appearance of having much 
less valley than it really possesses. High mountains of the Coast range rise very near its banks, 
