32 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE REGIONS EXAMINED. 
any bad bill. The total distance from Clackamas prairie to Evelyn’s rancho, by way of Nee-nee 
springs, is about 90 miles. 
It is probable that a route might be discovered from my pass through the main ridge, to the 
present wagon road down Sandy river. If so, the great labor and expense of cutting through 
the logs in Clackamas ravine would be avoided. 
A more minute description of the trail of my party across the mountains will be found in 
Chapter V, from October 5 to October 14, inclusive ; but it must be remembered that fallen 
timber compelled me, during the latter part of the way, to follow a course very different from 
that proposed for the wagon road. 
4. Foster’s Pass, south of Mount Hood. —This pass, by which an emigrant wagon road now 
crosses the range, is named from the settler whose house stands nearest to it in the Willamette 
valley. The following information concerning it has been derived from reliable sources. Start¬ 
ing from the Willamette valley, a short distance north of Camp 64 A, the road follows up the 
ravine of Sandy river nearly to the main ridge. After leaving the stream it crosses the Range, 
between my new pass and Mount Hood, by a route so mountainous that heavily loaded wagons 
can travel only in one direction. It strikes Tysch creek, in Des Chutes valley, near Evelyn’s 
rancho. For about 70 miles there is no grass near the road. 
5. Pass near northern base of Mount Hood. —This pass is rarely used by any but Indians. I 
am told that it is very mountainous in its character, and that there is a great scarcity of grass' 
near the trail.- It is considered hardly practicable, even for pack animals. 
6. Columbia River Pass. —I travelled down the Columbia, from Fort Dalles to the Cascades, 
in a small steamboat, and made a reconnaissance of the river between these points. The fol¬ 
lowing brief description of this portion of the pass has been prepared from information thus 
obtained. 
The Columbia river forces its way through the Cascade Range by a pass, which, for wild and 
sublime natural scenery, equals the celebrated passage of the Hudson through the Highlands. 
For a distance of about fifty miles, mountains, covered with clinging spruces, firs, and pines, 
when not too precipitous to afford even these a foothold, rise abruptly from the water’s edge to 
heights varying from one to three thousand feet. Some of the ridges are apparently composed 
of compact basaltic conglomerate ; others are enormous piles of small rocks, vast quantities of 
which have been known to slide into the river, overwhelming everything in their course. 
Vertical precipices of columnar basalt are occasionally seen rising from fifty to one hundred feet 
above the water’s edge. In other places, the long mountain walls of the river are divided by 
lateral canons, containing small tributaries and occasionally little open spots of good land 
liable to be overflowed at high water. It is difficult to conceive how the river could ever have 
forced its way through such a labyrinth of mountains. 
About 40 miles below the Dalles, all navigation is interrupted by a series of rapids, called the 
Cascades. Precipitous mountains, from two to four thousand feet in height, close in upon the 
stream at this spot, leaving a narrow channel through which the water rushes with great 
violence. During high water, the river bed is only about 900 feet wide at the narrowest place. 
The descent at the principal rapid was shown by my barometric observations to be 34 feet, and 
the total fall at the Cascades to be 61 feet. These quantities, however, vary with the different 
stages of the water, as, when it is high, the obstructions in the channel act like a dam, and 
greatly increase the depth above. 
An attempt formerly made to build a road round these rapids on the southern bank, entirely 
