This is a battleground of the powers of fire and ice, this great glacier-ridden volcanic
peak of Mount Rainier that thrusts its summit above the clouds and rears against the northwest
sky. A mountain so huge, so immense, that it creates its own weather system, independent
of the surrounding countryside. Mount Rainier reaches into the upper atmosphere to disturb
great tides of moist maritime air. Flowing eastward from across the Pacific, winds break
on the flanks of the mountain and wrap it in halos of clouds. Part of a chain running
the full length of two American continents, the great Cascade Range crests near the northwestern
coast of the United States, like foam-tipped waves of the sea. But Mount Rainier stands
alone apart from the range to which it belongs, nearly 400 square miles of verdant foothills
and mountain that so dominates the horizon from wherever it is seen. This majestic peak,
reaching 14,410 feet into the atmosphere, is the backdrop to unspoiled streams and meadows.
It is a crown for an evergreen tidal wave of forests of fir and pine that flow against
the mountain and run out of momentum only on its furrowed rocky flanks. Mount Rainier
National Park is one of our last mountain frontiers. From cities and towns, people arrive,
responding to the sense of wilderness calling to be explored. It is a place for mountain
enthusiasts of all ages, hiker, fisherman, mountain climber, or leisurely automobile
tourist. Two worlds exist at Mount Rainier, a lush, living world of evergreens and meadows
under a July sun.
And a cold, austere world of snow and ice. Snow nourishing the glaciers, melting to give
rise to the rivers, and feeding countless waterfalls.
Snow, by the pattern of its melting, climbing the mountains, and
timing the bloom of flowers.
Snow, by the pattern of its melting, climbing the mountains, and timing the bloom of flowers.
This is Mount Rainier. This is the story of a mountain. But what is a mountain? A mountain
is many things. Forests soaring free, rock in staggering shapes and sizes, water resting
for a moment in meadow pools, roaring in frantic haste to mother sea, or pausing to nurture
flowers of myriad variety.
A mountain is weather in primitive form, rainstorms in infancy, fog shrouding and feeding all
the mountain life, the crisp shafts of sunlight striking this nearest to the earth's surfaces.
A mountain is life in beautiful forms.
A mountain is ice, rivers of it in glaciers.
Snow, holding command for months and lingering as a reminder through the summer.
But above all these things, a mountain is mystery. A mystery of time, of power, a luring
clue to the very center of earth forces that shaped and shape our earth. This mountain
we call Rainier. How many years beyond number did she tower here over the mighty Cascade
Range, before Captain George Vancouver sailed the British survey ship Discovery into a sound
named Puget and gave us a date we can cling to.
Today is May 8th in the year of our Lord 1792. The weather is serene and pleasant and the
country continues to exhibit between us and the eastern snowy range the same luxuriant
appearance. At its northern extremity, Mount Beggar bearing by compass north 22 east, the
round snowy mountain now forming its southern extremity and which after my friend, Rear
Admiral Rainier, I distinguish by the name of Mount Rainier bearing north, south 42 east.
A day, a date, a pen scratch by which we measure events, a name to mark a map, the name of
British Admiral never fortunate enough to see his namesake.
Before Rainier, this mountain was called Tehoma by the Indians who lived near her slopes.
Tehoma, God, a thing to fear. In their memories were the stories of their ancestors, of the
time when smoke and flame belched forth from the top of Tehoma. Sure evidence of a devil
or God's wrath. Before their ancestors, in a time of no memory, this great mountain did
not exist. Here, 60 million years ago, stretched a broad coastal lowland dotted with lakes
and ocean bays. Then volcanoes venting fiery lava from the inner earth blanketed this land
with volcanic rock. The twistings of the earth faulted and crumpled this rock, lifting it
into mountains. These northwest mountains, cut by water into low hills, were to be the
foundation of the great cascade range of today.
Thirteen million years ago, these cascades were lifted in great folds and carved into
the shapes we see. A suitable place for the great fire peaks of the northwest. And here
they were born a million years ago when seething molten lava again found weak spots in the
earth's crust, spewed out, spread, and formed the cones that are Mount Rainier, another
volcanic peaks of the Pacific coast.
Rainier's cone rose to a height of three miles until explosions caused the top few thousand
feet to slide into valleys just five thousand years ago. Avalanches and glaciers carved
and sculpted the sides of Mount Rainier into the towering cliffs, the U-shaped valleys
and cirques of today.
Sixty million years, an incomprehensible moment in time. How is it measured? How is
it understood? That is part of the mystery of a mountain. The lure that drew men who
wanted to know this land, men who have given us their discoveries, men who having seen
Mount Rainier, simply had to climb to the summit, study the plants, the rocks, the
wildlife.
Each of these men, in his time and his way, moved into an area with little or no human
history. A new, fresh land where there were no great names to conjure with, no way to
the past to balance the present. And each of these men contributed something, something
precious to us today. They are not things as we measure things, but each gave us a start
toward unraveling the tangled skein of nature's work. Pause a moment on the trail and
sense the feelings these men must have had as they saw the beauty of this wilderness.
It is much the same today.
The discipline of nature stands revealed, inviting exploration just as it did for these
first men, striding through the lower slopes of cathedral-like forest, western red cedar,
western hemlock, Douglas fir, a lush verdant land.
And higher, the fir trees, called Pacific, silver and noble. Here, too, is the Alaska
cedar. Higher yet, the subalpine fir and mountain hemlock clustering groups right up to
Timberline, and underfoot, nurtured by the volcano-born pumice soil, wildflowers, carpet
meadows, and slopes in several hundred varieties.
As wild and beautiful as the meadows of Scotland, as ever I've seen. I'm Dr. Fraser
Tolney. In 1833, I was detained at Fort Nisqually by matters of medical consequence. In the
fall, after I had completed my medical duties, I embarked upon a botanizing expedition, probably
the first on the nearby Great Mountain. The forests were huge and grand. I gathered herbs
and noticed carefully the species of many plants. I found some strange plants, which
I examined, and with the assistance of my native Indian guides, I packed them for transport
back to the fort. One was a saxophrage, I believe had never been seen before.
Dr. Tolney was possibly the first botanist to explore the slopes of Mount Rainier, but
his faint trail has been followed by many others seeking to know more of these most
beautiful of plants, the alpine wildflowers.
Music
Always above the meadow, the beckoning peak calls to come see the world spread at its
feet. Finally, in 1857, a young army lieutenant stationed at Fort Steelcum could resist no
longer, and on July 8th, Lieutenant August V. Coutts set out.
It was a great day. All the officers of the fort had decided I would never ascend Rainier
and had long since given up. There were seven of us, four soldiers, Dr. Craig, Wapowody,
our Indian guide, and myself.
The ascent was a two-week ordeal that none of the seven would ever forget. They fought
their way through forests of terrible solitude, endured days of rain, turned back only 500
feet from the real summit only when their water froze in their canteens, but not before
Coutts had seen the snowy peaks of St. Helens, Adams, and Hood looking like pyramidal icebergs
above an ocean.
Imagination can glimpse Coutts with his red stocking cap returning through the alpine
meadows exhausted but victorious to call the turn on his fellow officers.
Thirteen years later, in August of 1870, three other men sat at a campfire high on the side
of the mountain. Two would climb, the other wait with fear in his heart. For to him, the
mountain was still, Tahoma, the devil god. Listen to the Indian, Sluskin.
Many years ago, my grandfather, the greatest and bravest of all the Yakima, climbed nearly
to the summit. There he caught sight of the fiery lake and the infernal demon coming to
destroy him and he fled down the mountain, glad to escape with his life. Where he failed,
no other Indian ever dared make the attempt. At first, the way is easy. The task seems
like. The broad snow fields over which I have hunted the mountain goat offer an inviting
path. But above them, you will have to climb over steep rocks, overhanging deep gorges
where a misstep would hurl you far down, down to certain death. You must creep over snow
banks and cross deep crevasses where a mountain goat could hardly keep his footing. You must
climb along cliffs where rock are continually falling to crush you or knock you off into
the bottomless depths. And if you should escape these perils, reach the great snowy dome,
and a bitterly cold and furious tempest will sweep you off into space like a withered leaf.
But if by some miracle, you should survive all these perils, the mighty demon of Tahoma
will surely kill you and throw you into the fiery lake. Hazard Stevens and Philemon Van
Trump encountered almost all of the perils predicted by Sluskin. But instead of a fiery
lake, they found an ice cave melted by volcanic steam which saved their lives by providing
overnight shelter to the first two men to stand on Rainier's lofty summit. It was August
18th, 1870.
I obtained my first grand view of the mountain in August 1867 from one of the prairies southeast
of Olympia. That first true vision of the mountain impressed me so indescribably, enthused
me so thoroughly that I then and there vowed that I would someday stand upon its glorious
summit.
Stevens and Van Trump had climbed simply to climb. In October, Samuel Emmons and A.D.
Wilson endured the fall storms to make the second recorded ascent, this time to trace
the glaciers and map the higher reaches of the mountain. Science, with a dash of adventure,
is always calling men to Mount Rainier. Geologist Bailey Willis carved a road into Spray Park
in the 1880s and later returned to climb and study.
This northern slope of the mountain is very steep, and the consolidated snow begins its
downward movement from near the top. Little pinnacles of rock project through the mass
and form eddies in the current. A jagged ridge divides it and part descends into the deep,
unexplored canyon of White River, probably the deepest chasm in the flanks of Mount Tacoma.
Now, the other part comes straight on toward the southern side of Crescent Mountain, a
precipice 2,000 feet high. Diverted, it turns in graceful flowing curves and breaks into
a thousand ice pyramids and descends into the narrow pass where its beauty is hidden
under the ever-falling showers of rock.
Others, Mathis, Laconte, Coombs, Crandall, have searched and probed and spread out their
answers for us. And studies go on, for the glaciers reshape the mountain daily. Rainier's
40-odd glaciers move tons of rock and mud down the mountain each day. Glaciers are great
rivers of ice carrying boulders and debris along to scour and sculpt the flanks of the
mountain, cutting deep into the bedrock, forming cirques, gouging deep valleys.
Glaciers and erosion have laid back great layers of rock for study, evidence of the
massive forces of volcanoes, of the shifting of the earth, and of power of ice and water
to hue bedrock into incredible form.
Others came who saw the mountain as a way of life, a place to be. One of the first was
James Longmire.
From 1880 to 1883, I took in several parties, even though it meant taking time for my farm.
I guess I'd always wanted to climb the mountain. I was 63 when Van Trump and George Bailey
asked me to go with them. I went and saw the summit for the first time. I was glad I did.
I remember the first time I saw the meadow. On the way back from that climb in 1883, we
discovered that the horses had wandered from the spot where we left them. I set about to
find them. They were in a green, beautiful meadow with springs that seemed like medicine
waters. This was where I had to be. I blazed a trail into the meadow, and later with my
family, I built a little log hotel for visitors.
And the Longmires became legend to the mountain. To this meadow, to their small hotel, people
came seeking their own answers to the mystery of the mountain. One answer grew in the hearts
of many. This place, this Mount Rainier, must have a rightful place as an American treasure.
Men who had climbed, men who had learned from this great peak rallied to the cause, and
in 1899, the people of the state of Washington had their national park.
The forces of nature that ever change, ever shape a land, shape it as nature intends.
The constant change is nature. Man alone can destroy, wantonly for a time. He can gouge
the earth, ravage the forest cover, exterminate wildlife without compensating the earth for
taking, or he can preserve.
The magnificent forest encircling Mount Rainier is, like all old-growth forests of the Pacific
Northwest, a classic of its kind.
Twenty-seven species of trees, ranging from wide-spaced subalpine trees to dense, lowland
forests of conifers and deciduous species, mantle the park. Sword fern, lady fern, and
bracken form part of the carpet of the forest floor.
There is a closeness, a solemnity in this forest that imparts a feeling of remoteness.
Tacoma, Seattle, and their counterparts are not just a few miles away. They seem not to
exist.
Douglas fir, red cedars, and western hemlock soar more than 200 feet above valley floors.
The tall, massive, lush look of the forest is a dramatic ploy on the part of nature,
for it hides Mount Rainier from those entering the park and lowers the curtain for those
who are leaving.
Millions of visitors have come to the mountain since its discovery by explorer Captain George
Vancouver in 1792. Although the area has been home for Native Americans for at least 11,000
years, none apparently had permanent villages within the boundaries of the present park.
Their place, in its history, was in the service as guides for the earliest of the explorations
to come.
Dr. William Tolmie recorded the first white man's close approach to the mountain.
General Hazard Stevens, the first successful ascent in 1870. Samuel Emmons, the second
successful ascent. Bailey Willis, geologist.
And Francois Mathis studied and mapped the vast glaciers of Mount Rainier.
The Indians logged red cedar for houses and canoes. Real logging by the white man began
in earnest at Fort Vancouver in the early 1820s. The great green ocean of trees drew loggers
as rivers and mountains would later draw the gold seekers.
In 1906, timber was cheaper than dirt and the logging industry advanced nearly to Mount
Rainier National Park boundaries until in 1933, a set of rules was established to conserve
the forests of the Cascades.
History has turned and it is once again the jagged glacier hung peaks and ridges that are
the lure of Mount Rainier.
The purpose of a national park is to preserve its native animals in a natural environment
undisturbed by land uses that prevail outside park boundaries. Elk and deer are migrators
moving in and out of the park. Most of the deer seen in the park are black tail, although
mule deer, a variety of black tail, are found in the eastern part. Fongs are born in May
and June.
There are 50 species of mammals in the park. A few species that once were here are gone.
The lynx, the wolverine, the timber wolf. Others that were formerly common are now rare,
affected by human technology or commercial land uses outside the park.
Changes also occur inside the park. The feeding of deer, squirrels and other animal panhandlers
encourages unnatural concentrations in areas. The ultimate death of some animals by malnutrition
often occurs when the visitors season ends and winter arrives.
No part of Mount Rainier is without wildlife. Mountain goats remain on the high reaches
of rocky cliffs throughout the year. The shaggy outer coat, which is grown for winter, is
shed for the warm season.
This horned, sure-footed rock climber has slightly cupped hoof pads for traction on
apparently sheer precipices. Hemlock twigs and even leekon may provide nourishment.
These mountain goats are not true goats. The North American antelope and the European Alps
chamois are its closest relatives.
The rare and elusive mountain lion. Humans have greatly reduced the numbers of this natural
area to the number of other outside park boundaries, but a few still remain within its refuge.
Mount Rainier is a place for people. On a sunny day, there will be thousands of visitors
roaming the trails. Along with the day hikers will be packed-latent overnighters heading
to the country. Ahead of them will be nights and days of challenge and unending beauty.
The subalpine meadows are the areas where the park's activities are centered during
the day.
Exploring the meadow trails leads to sweeping views of jagged rock horizons and high alpine
mountains.
Rainier is a mountain that epitomizes the fullness of beauty where life zones meet.
Here, there is always a zone where winter meets the other seasons. Most visitors seek
out the zone of contact between advancing springtime and retreating winter. There, in
an interplay beginning in April at lowest elevations and ending at tree line in late
August or early September, the wildflowers and greening meadows follow the melting snow.
By the time most visitors arrive at Mount Rainier, the line is well up the mountain.
The open, subalpine meadowlands are shedding their blankets of snow. The zone is vibrant.
Its intensity is sharpened by the contrast between snow and the purity of new life. Under
the warmth of the sun, visitors respond much as plants do with a rare enthusiasm for life.
Exhibits placed along trails and roadway areas by the National Park Service interpret the
natural features of the park.
Visitor centers offer exhibits and publications on the story of Mount Rainier.
Interpretive programs are presented by the National Park Service. During the summer,
ranger naturalists lead nature walks.
Paradise is the most popular single area in the park. The visitor center and nearby Paradise
Inn encompasses a 360-degree view of alpine meadows and forests.
When the Longmire family established their Hot Springs Resort in 1884, they welcomed
guests for $8 a week. The spectacular natural setting, aided by the restorative properties
of the water, made the Longmire Resort a mecca for tourists. Increasing numbers of vacationers
with stories of Mount Rainier's grandeur generated ripples of interest beyond the state of
Washington.
Newspapers pointed out the depredation of a fragile environment by the growing numbers
of visitors and urged conservation.
Scientists took note of the glaciers and added their voices to the growing chorus advocating
establishment of a national park. Approval was granted by Congress and Mount Rainier
became the nation's fifth national park.
The awesome spectacle of Mount Rainier's peak is attributable to its glacier system, the
largest single mountain system in the lower 48 states, consisting of 35 square miles of
ice in 27 named glaciers.
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The impression of the mountain as a presence linked in eternal bond to earth, sky, and
infinity comes most often to those who climb its upper slopes.
The summit climb is a trip made by more than 2,500 mountaineers each year.
This is a world of rock and sky, snow and ice, ever-present ice that crunches beneath
the feet, eases thirst, and floods the earth with white brilliance.
These high places hold a special beauty.
They are places of wind, silence, and solitude that draw the adventuring spirit time and
time again.
Mount Rainier, as it is enjoyed today, will not last long in terms of geologic time.
The rock of its volcanic core is superheated to white-hot liquid.
The mountain is quite capable of reawakening any day, perhaps in an eruption violent enough
to return it to its dawning day.
Mount Rainier's identity as a volcano is betrayed by two craters on its summit.
Evidence of the energy still ebbing within the craters is seen at caves along their
rims where steam has melted tunnels in the ice cap.
An appreciation of Mount Rainier's size must be experienced to be believed.
On a clear day, the peak's snowfields may be seen from a distance of over 100 miles.
For those driving toward the park, the hours that follow the first glimpses are an eternity
of hide and seek as the great peak is lost behind successively closer ranges.
Finally, the lower peaks are behind, and the great mountain rises in all its glory, truly
the mountain that was God.
It has been more than a century since Luskin led the early-day white men up Rainier.
The forests have changed but little.
Douglas fir and western hemlock live 500 years and more.
The rock of the mountain seems to endure forever.
In its geologic history, a thousand years is a fleeting instant.
A million years is a brief moment.
Still, Mount Rainier continues to be an active landscape.
A feeling of vitality that is exciting yet relaxing is imparted by the rugged mountain,
luxuriant growth and roaring rivers.
Mount Rainier bears four of the seven life zones of North America.
Naturalists use these designations of characteristic vegetation and wildlife to differentiate between
distinctive climatic environments and the plant and animal life which have adapted to
them.
From the lush, deciduous woodland of the lowest hills to the nearly barren alpine tundra,
windswept, bitterly cold, where dwarf flowers bloom and the agile mountain goat roams the
ettes, four smallales Central или Hey!
This land of contrast is a landscape in eternal change.
The ebb and flow of life, the changing of the seasons,
and always there is the grinding of the glaciers.
The great slow-moving rivers of ice provide constant reminders of their activity.
Avalanches of snow, ice, and rock make the mountain extremely dangerous.
One climber reported after descending,
The frightening thing was the rocks came without warning.
The rocks started shedding extremely large pieces, most of which fell between two rope teams.
When the sun reappeared, a tremendous rock fall occurred that lasted over five minutes.
Had we been caught under this fall, we could have done nothing to save ourselves.
Mud flows, another hazard, may suddenly gush downslope when huge quantities of water, mud, and rock trapped under glaciers break loose.
Through the ice ages that shaped much of the North American continent, glaciers dug deep ravines in the once perfect volcanic cone.
Seen above the clouds, Mount Rainier reveals its true nature, a mountain wracked by the forces of fire and ice.
This is a mountain of memories, the mountain of men who have known it for decades and have grown to anticipate and love its many moods.
The mountain of unforgettable experience for anyone who has seen it.
In the words of Bailey Willis,
I have seen the glories of Switzerland, the grandeur of the Andes, and the grace of the beautiful cone of Fujiyama.
But among the most renowned scenery of the world, I know of nothing more majestic or more inspiring than the grandeur of my own old kingdom.
Mount Rainier
Here at Mount Rainier, man preserved because those who came only wanted to take away enrichment, learning, adventure.
Here, waiting for you, is the sum of what they saw, sensed, and learned.
Mount Rainier
What is a mountain?
A mountain is, and always will be, a mystery for each man to seek, to solve in his own way.
Mount Rainier