The Sky -Line of the Tatoosh Range. 



15 



THE SKY-LINE OF THE TATOOSH RANGE, 

 MT. RAINIER NATIONAL PARK. 



By Marion Randall. 



On the afternoon of the i6th of July nine of u? 

 Sierrans who have had many days of mountaineering 

 together sat on the top of Pinnacle Peak and determined 

 to our ovv^n satisfaction that that mountain did not deserve 

 the honor accorded it of being the highest point of its 

 chain, but that a little-considered, and, as far as we knew, 

 absolutely unexplored, peak at the farther end of the 

 range was the real summit. We thereupon christened it 

 Unicom Peak, for reasons sufficiently evident, and re- 

 solved that before many days should have passed we 

 should climb it and attain the actual summit of the 

 Tatoosh Range. 



This little mountain chain, while rising only to the 

 elevation of seven thousand feet, is ► extremely pictur- 

 esque. Formed of a dark volcanic rock, and with its 

 steep northern slopes deeply buried in snow, its abrupt, 

 straight wall, running from east to west for some ten 

 miles, presents difficulties that many a range twice its 

 size cannot boast. We had watched it often from camp 

 at sunset, when the long purple shadows were thrown 

 across its rosy snow-fields, or with its black pinnacles 

 breaking through the storm-clouds into the sunlight again, 

 until we knew every crest and col by heart. So it was 

 not difficult to map out our line of exploration. 



We left camp, fifteen strong, after 8 o'clock on the 

 morning of the 20th, crossed the low ridge above the 

 commissary, and swung down the long, open slope to 

 the Paradise River. Across the stream, where the woods 

 grew closer, the ground was carpeted with soft mosses 

 and banks of starry erythronium lilies. We climbed on, 



