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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1879)
THE WEST SHORE. 7' the cake entire and not spoil it with nibbling, therefore we will cast no glance behind until we reach the very summit. Before us lie loose rocks, whose Frequent boom, as they go thun dering into the crater, reaches our cars with frightful distinctness. Before us the wind drives the brim stone breath of the crater, whose nox ious gases are almost suffocating. Hc forc us lies a long ridge of snow, soft and treacherous On account of the heat of the crater; the green ice-chasm spanned only by a narrow bridge of ice ; and lastly the almost perpendicular wall sheeted with ice which forms the summit of the mountain. To such forcible arguments one is very likely to signify his acquicscnc'e by retiring from the scene of action. But we gird ourselves for final strug gle. Coats and scarfs, which we had worn thus far under the impression that they might protect us from the cold, are Hung aside. One member, who began to show signs of weaken ing, disposed of his hat and vest, and even his vail. The snow on the long ridge is soft by reason of the increasing heat of the sun, so that we sink to our knees at al most every step. Exhuming ourselves wc find to be a painful process. From the ice-crcvasse we look down a steep incline into the crater. It is like look ing into gigantic funnel partly broken down on one side. On the narrow bridge of ice which spans the crevasse we pause a moment to admire the wondrously beautiful kaleidoscopic flashes as the sunlight plays on the lips of the chasm. (Jreen and gold and saffron and purple chase ench other in quick succession over the huge icicles and flit like butterflies of light from one icy ledge to another. That must be the home of rainbows, down there beneath the frost, and these varying tints the flashings of their finger-tips pressed against the windows of their palace. From the crevasse upward the ac cent is at an angle of fifty degrees) nt one point steeper. Wc can go but a few steps at a time. Wc make, our way only by firmly planting our spikc polcs in the ice, and then sustaining ourselves by that, chopping steps in the ice for our feet. Then, being se curely footed, wc withdraw our poles and proceed as before. A half hour of most exhausting toil brings us to the summit. Conquered at last, hoary headed old volcano ! Thy head be neath our feet ! Man, though small, i movable; Thou, though mighty, art immovable. Man, though born in the valley, can claim thy stature for his own and make thy crown his throne of vision; while Thou art sightless to the valleys where the sunbeams play, and dumb to the thunders of the tempests, and to the tumult of the waterfalls be neath. A fierce north wind flings the dry snow in eddies around our heads. The sun though blinding bright has lost his heat, and wc stand shivering while we look around in wonder at the vast panorama before us. The first feeling is one of utter bewilderment. Wc can recognise no familiar points at first. The hills and valleys over which wc journeyed arc flattened out as with an enormous roller. Laurel Hill, which we had thought a very respectable mountain, is at first invisible, but after some search wc discover a bare patch of ground, large enough for a medium sized mole-lull, which by the aid l reasoning we conclude to Ik- Laurel Hill. The lower part of the Willam ette valley is covered with clouds, The vast masses pulsate like a sea I- ncath the sun and wind. Southward, Mt. Jefferson stands in bold relief, seeming almost within rifle shot, though sixty miles away. Heyond Mt.Jeffi-r-son the Three Sisters; and still beyond, the rugged mass of Diamond I'eak. And yet further, a cluster of snowy caks, two hundred miles distant, close the southward view. Eastward, vast plains, dimmed by the dust of summer. The great hunch-grass empire, with its strange lakes and sunken rivers, with its abysmal canons and foaming water fulls; with its cities of rocks, its vol canic caverns, its mastodon cemeteries and petrified forests; with its vast herds of cattle and its selfcomplalccnt though scanty jopulation, stretches muidly away, Ixiunded by a line of almost in visible mountains. The scene reminds ut ol the unfortunate savage, whose battle-field it recently was. Perhaps wc might rather say the savage unfor tunate, who is almost as heartless, even though by no means so unscrupulous a the political sharks who would at Uin their dearest wish in a Kilkenny fight between the settlers and Indians in or der that they might possess themselves of the land, One more turn and we fuce northward. We look for the Co lumbia river. After straining our eyes to find it in the distance wc suddenly discover it flowing apparently ut our feet. The dark, green current is won derfully distinct as it rolls on amid its protecting crags. Three great snow peaks dominate over the northern land scape. Mt. Adams, furthest to the right, is a flat and massy pile, wore nearly bare of snow nnd more eusy of ascent than any of the great )cuks, Tucoma, in the center, sublimes! of American mountains; throned moid al most inaccessible crags, fringed by well nigh imK'netrable forests, down into whose depths u doxen glaciers stretch their fingers; a hundred and fifty miles away, yet lifting its fifteen thousand feet of altitude above all surrounding objects. To the left, Mt. St. Helens, in beautiful contrast with lucomu, rises from a purple base, a smooth and shining dome, fit queen to Hoo.1, as the old legend of the Indians represents it to he. This old legend tells, too, of a little domestic infelicity in which a huge rock wus hurled by the irate lord ut the bride's while brow, hut fulling short of the murk, dashed down the natural bridge which till then had spanned the Columbia. With this story In our minds we again search out the great river, as it upK-urs here ami there amid the hills, until at last un vexed by mountain harriers, expanding like a sea, it fades amid the mists of the ocean. South ami east and noith und west ! Now suppose we look downward. We advance cautiously to the northern edge. Wc almost leup backward at sight of the dirying abyss below. Three thousund feet almost pcricndlc ular ! The basaltic columns point right up nt us like huge fingers. Ten of our tallest firs, planted on the glacier, which lies like a marble pavement at the foot of the pre. ipirc, would scarcely reach us. Wc arc dixxicd as wc look down and start back with u nervous feeling that the mountain is aliout to fall headlong northward. The summit of the mountain Is a long ridge, the precipice of three thousand feet un the north, and the crater on the south. Late in the season the snow melt from the crater, making a perpendicular descent into that also.