534 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photo by Milnor Roberts 



14 EEET OE SNOW ON THE WAGON BRIDGE ONE 

 HALE MILE ABOVE NARADA EAEES '. 

 MARCH 30, I909 



ary of the park, at which point it joins 

 the government road. The latter has a 

 maximum grade of 4 per cent, and ex- 

 tends to Paradise Park, a favorite camp- 

 ing ground near timber-line, between the 

 Nisqually and Paradise glaciers. 



In summer the Ashford stages run 

 thirteen miles, to Longmire's Springs, 

 where there are two hotels. The road is 

 open, however, past Nisqually Glacier 

 and Narada Falls, several miles farther 



up. During the season of 1909 a 

 temporary road with steeper grades 

 will be completed to Camp of the 

 Clouds, at an altitude of 5,600 feet. 

 Eventually the permanent road will 

 reach 7,000 feet, where trails will 

 branch off. An automobile party 

 leaving Seattle or Tacoma in the 

 morning can pitch its evening camp 

 in one of the dense groves of stunted 

 trees at timber-line in the shadow 

 of the great peak, looking out upon 

 the jagged pinnacles of the Tatoosh 

 Range and the vast forest wilder- 

 ness to the westward. 



On March 18 our party found 

 three feet of snow at the National 

 Park Inn at Longmire's Springs. 

 On the morning after our arrival a 

 dense cloud-bank hung a few hun- 

 dred feet overhead. Frequent flur- 

 ries of snow came drifting down 

 from it, now in matted bunches of 

 moist flakes an inch wide, again as 

 separate crystals, these in turn giv- 

 ing way to little rounded pellets like 

 dry sago, which hopped from bough 

 to bough down through the ever- 

 greens. Our skis settled silently 

 through the fresh snow, as we trailed 

 up the government road along the 

 Nisqually River, intending to break 

 a trail part way to Paradise Valley, 

 the goal of our trip. During the 

 midday thaw, masses of snow clung 

 to the worn spots on the sole of a 

 certain ski in the outfit. After many 

 gyrations and contortions had been 

 made by its fair owner in removing 

 the burden, she announced piously, 

 "My soul is ready for Paradise," 

 and on we "mushed" again. 

 On the trail up the narrow valley of 

 the Paradise River the snow was found 

 to be a foot deeper for each two or three 

 hundred feet of elevation gained. So 

 quietly had the flakes fallen in the shel- 

 tered valleys that each stump and fallen 

 tree was covered almost as deeply as the 

 surrounding ground, as some of the pho- 

 tographs show. On the exposed ridges, 

 however, the winds had piled huge drifts 

 over the brow of every leeward slope. 



