History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 2

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 2
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 2
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 2

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HISTORY OF YAKIMA VALLEY

seems to denote a separate geological history from that of other parts of the Yakima Valley.

Such may be regarded as a general view of the topography of the land covered by this work. Occupying so considerable a section of the water shed of the great Cascade Range on its eastern frontage, it necessarily follows that the springs which feed its rivers have perpetual sources of supply in the snows and glaciers of those lofty heights. About the headwaters of the Yakima and Naches and their affluents are vast forests, second only to those on the western slopes. In those great cordons of mountains are found, too, many indications of mineral wealth, though as yet there has not been large development, except in coal.

One has but to glance at a map to know at once that the upper Yakima must be a land of scenic grandeur. We are not content to rely upon maps to to tell the story, but must needs go and see. The two highest mountains of the state, Adams and Takhoma (or Rainier), are within sight from many points in the Yakima Valley. The former is nearer and is located in the southwest corner of Yakima County. It is the dominating feature of the western land- scape at every elevated point in the valley, and can be seen from every unob- structed window on the west side of all the high buildings in the city of Yakima. One of the pictures in this volume presents one of the finest views of Adams, that from the Sunnyside Canal with the foreground of a typical irrigated sec- tion. Other views in this volume, designed especially to illustrate the develop- ment of the system of irrigation, give also a conception of that sublime margin of regal mountains which sunder the western and the central parts of the state of Washington. It is needless to state that the inhabitants of a region favored, as those of Yakima are, with accessible scenic retreats and great play grounds afforded by the Cascade Mountains, with their lakes and streams, their game and fish, must have the camping out habit and taste fully developed. The native sons and daughters of Yakima, and even newcomers, taste these wilder- ness delights to the full. There is plenty of room. It is wild nature all around, wholesome and life-giving. The author has made several trips to Mount Adams and as expressing his sense of these features of nature which impart such a zest to life in this region he is including some observations here of past journeys and the characteristic experiences which so fascinate any one who has ever been in the mountains of central Washington. It is of interest to note that at time of writing this work a movement has been initiated by the Yakima Commercial Club to induce the Federal Government to establish a National park around and including Mount Adams.

Around Mount Adams is a region of caves. As one rides through the open glades he may often hear the ground rumble beneath his horse's hoofs. Mouths of Avernus yawn on every side. Some caverns have sunken in, leav- ing serpentine ravines. One cave has been traced three miles. Some of these caves are partially filled with ice. There is one in particular, fifteen miles southwest of the mountain, which is known as Ice Cave. This is very small, not over four hundred feet long, but it is a marvel of unique beauty. Its ex- ternal appearance is that of a huge well, at whose edge are bunches of nodding flowers, and from whose dark depths issue sudden chilly gusts. Descending

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by means of a knotty young tree which previous visitors have let down, we find ourselves on a floor of ice. The glare of pitchpine torches reveals a weird and beautiful scene. A perfect forest of icicles of both the stalactite and stalagmite forms fills the cave. They are from ten to fifteen feet in length and from one to three feet in diameter. From some points of view they look like silvered organ-pipes.

These caves have been formed in some cases by chambers of steam or bubbles in the yet pasty rock which hardened enough to maintain their form upon the condensation of the vapor. Others were doubtless produced by a tongue of lava as it collected slag and hardened rock upon its moving edge, rising up and curling over like a breaker on the sand. Only the "cave of flint" instead of turning into a "retreating cloud" had enough solid matter to sustain an arch and so became permanent. Others were no doubt formed by pyroducts. A tongue of flowing lava hardens on the surface. The interior remains fluid. It may continue running until the tongue is all emptied, leaving a cavern. Such a cavern, whose upper end reaches the cold air of the mountains, might be like a chimney, down which freezing air would descend, turning into ice the water that trickled into the cave, even at the lower end.

For sport, the region about Mount Adams is unsurpassed. The elk, three kinds of deer, the magnificent mule deer, the black-tail, and the graceful little white-tail, two species of bear, the cinnamon and black, the daring and ubiqui- tous mountain goat, quail, grouse, pheasants, ducks, cranes, are among the attractions to the hunter. Of late years great bands of sheep have driven the game somewhat from the south and east sides. In the grassy glades that en- circle the snowy pile of Adams no vexatious undergrowth impedes the gallop of our fleet cayuse pony or obscures our vision. On the background of fragrant greenery the "dun deer's hide" is thrown witli statuesque distinctness, and among the low trees the whirring grouse is easily discerned. Nor is the dis- ciple of Nimrod alone considered. After our hunt we may move to Trout Lake, and here the very ghost of the lamented Walton might come as to a paradise. Trout Lake is a shallow pool half a mile in length, encircled with pleasant groves and grassy glades, marred now, however, by the encroachment of ranches. Into it there come at intervals from the ice-cold mountain inlet perfect shoals of the most gamey and delicious trout. On rafts, or the two or three rude skiffs that have been placed there, one may find all piscatorial joys and may abundantly supply his larder free of cost. A few ranches here and there furnish accommodations for those who are too delicate to rest on the bosom of Mother Earth. But no extended trip can be taken without com- mitting oneself to the wilderness delights of sleeping with star-dials for roof and flickering camp-fire for hearth. And what healthy human being would exchange those for the feverish, pampered life of the modern house? Let us have the barbarism, and with it the bounding pulses and exuberant life of the wilderness.

But now, with stomachs and knapsacks filled, and with that pervasive sense of contentment which characterizes the successful hunter and angler, we must drive up our cayuse ponies from their pastures on the rich grass of the open woods, saddle up, and then off for the mountain, whose giant form now

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overtops the very clouds. About two miles from Trout Lake the trail crosses the White Salmon, and we find ourselves at the foot of the mountain. For eight miles we follow a trail through open woods, park-like, with huge pines at irregular intervals, and vivid grass and flowers between, a fair scene, the native home of every kind of game.

As we journey on delightedly through these glades, rising, terrace after terrace, we can read the history of the mountain in the rock beneath our feet and the expanding plains and hills below. All within the ancient amphitheatre is volcanic. There are four main summits, a central dome, vast, symmetrical, majestic, pure-white against the blue-black sky of its unsullied height. The three other peaks are broken crags of basalt, leaning as for support against the mighty mass at the center. Around the snow-line of the mountain many minor cones have been blown up. These have the most gaudy and brilliant coloring, mainly yellow and vermilion. One on the southeast is especially noticeable. From a deep canon it rises two thousand feet as steep as broken scoriae can lie. The main part is bright red, surmounted by a circular cliff of black rock. Probably the old funnel of the crater became filled with black rock, which, cool- ing, formed a solid core. The older material around it having crumbled away, it remains a solid shaft.

But fire has not wrought all the wonders of the mighty peak. Ice has been most active. The mountain was once completely girdled with glaciers. Rocks are scratched and grooved five miles below the present snow-line. The ridges are strewn with planed rocks and glacial shavings and course sand. Some of the monticules on the flanks of the mountain have been partially cut away. Many have been entirely obliterated. But the ice has now greatly receded. Instead of a complete enswathement of ice there are some six or seven distinct glaciers, separated by sharp ridges, while the region formerly the chief home of the ice is now a series of Alpine meadows. Like most of the snow peaks, Mount Adams is rudely terraced, and the terraces are separated into compartments by ridges, forming scores and hundreds of glades and meads. In some of these are circular ponds, from a few square rods to several acres in area. These lakes are found by the hundred around the mountain and in the region north of it. They are one of the charms and wonders of the country. About most of them tall grass crowds to the very edge of the water. Scattered trees diver- sify the scene. Throughout these glades flow innumerable streams, descending from level to level in picturesque cascades, and composed of water so cold and sparkling that the very memory of it cools the after thirst. Sometimes the tough turf grows clear over, making a verdant tunnel through which "the tinkling waters slip." Here and there streams spout full-grown from frowning precipices.

But we are not content to stand below and gaze "upward to that height." We must needs ascend. In climbing a snow peak a great deal depends on making camp at a good height and getting a very early start. By a little searching one may find good camping places at an elevation of seven thousand or even eight thousand feet altitude. This leaves only four thousand or five thousand feet to climb on the great day, and by starting at about four o'clock a party may have sixteen hours of daylight. This is enough, if there be no accidents, to

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enable any sound man of average muscle,-or woman either, if she be properly dressed for it,-to gain the mighty dome of Adams.

At the time of our last ascent we camped high on a great ridge on the south side of the mountain, having for shelter a thick copse of dwarf firs. So fiercely had the winds of centuries swept this exposed point that the trees did not stand erect, but lay horizontal from west to cast.

With pulses bounding from the exhilarating air, and our whole systems glowing with the exercise and the wild game of the preceding week, we stretch ourselves out for sleep, while the stars blaze from infinite heights, and our uneasy camp-fire strives fitfully with the icy air which at nightfall always slides down the mountain side.

Sweet sleep till midnight, and then we found ourselves awake all at once with a unanimity which at first we scarcely understood, but which a moment's observation made clear enough. A regular mountain gale had suddenly broken upon us. It had waked us up by nearly blowing us out of bed. Our camp-fire was aroused to newness of life by the gale, and the huge fire-brands flew down the mountain side, igniting pitchy thickets, until a fitful glare illu- minated the lonely and savage grandeur of the scene. The whole sky seemed in motion. Then a cloud struck us. Night, glittering as she was a moment before with her tiaras of stars, was suddenly transformed into a dull, whitish blur. The vapor formed at once into thick drops on the trees and was precipi- tated in turn on us. Occasional sleet and snowflakes struck us with almost the sting of flying sand when we ventured to peep out. Covering ourselves up, heads and all, we crowded against each other and grimly went to sleep.

We woke again, chattering with cold, to find it perfectly calm. The morn- ing star was blazing over the spot where day was about to break. The sky was absolutely clear, not a mote on its whole concavity. The wind had swept and burnished it. The mountain towered above us cold and sharp as a crystal. There was a still, solemn majesty about it in the keen air and early light which struck us with a thrill of fear. The light just before daybreak is far more exact than the scarlet splendor of morning or the blinding blaze of noon. The world below us was a level set of clouds. We seemed to be on an island of snow and rock, or on a small planetoid winging its own way in space. Yet beyond the puncturing top of a few of the Simcoe peaks a wavering line that just touched the glowing eastern sky, told of clear weather a hundred leagues up the basin of the Columbia. Out of the ocean of cloud, the great peaks of Hood and St. Helens rose, cold and white, like icebergs on an Arctic sea.

Coffee, ham and hardtack and then out on the ice and snow, just as the first warm flush of morning is gilding the mighty mass above us. The snow, hardened by the freezing morning, affords excellent footing, and in the sharp, bracing air we feel capable of any effort. We gain the summit of a bright red knob, one of the secondary volcanoes that girdle the mountain. At its peak are purple stones piled up like an altar, as indeed it is, though the incense from it is not of human kindling. The sun is not fairly up, but from below the hori- zon it splits the hemisphere of the sky into a hundred segments by its auroral flashes. And now we begin to climb a volcanic ridge, rising like a huge stair- way, with blocks of stone as large as a piano. This is a tongue of lava, very

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recent, insomuch that it shows no glacial markings, and yet enough soil has accumulated upon it to support vegetation. It can be seen, a dull red river, three hundred yards wide, extending far down the mountain side. How well the old Greek poet described the process that must have taken place here: "Ætna, pillar of heaven, nurse of snow, with fountains of fire; a river of fire, bearing down rocks with a crashing sound to the deep sea."

The ridge becomes very steep, at an angle of probably thirty-five or forty degrees, and we climb on all fours from one rock to another. At last we draw ourselves up a huge wedge of phonolite and find ourselves at the summit of the first peak. Six hundred yards beyond, muffled in white silence, rises the great dome. It is probably five hundred feet higher than the first peak. To reach it we climb a bare, steep ridge of shaly, frost-shattered rock, in which we sink ankle deep, a difficult and even painful task with the labored breathing of twelve thousand feet altitude.

But patience conquers, and at about noon, seven hours and a half from the time of starting, we stand on the very tip of the mountain. Ten minutes pant- ing in the cold wind and then we are ready to look around. Within the circle of our vision is an area for an empire. Northward is a wilderness of moun- tains. High above all, Mount Rainier lifts his white crown unbroken to the only majesty above him, the sky. The western horizon, more hazy than the eastern, is punctuated by the smooth dome and steely glitter of Mount St. Helen's. Far southward, across a wilderness of broken heights, rises the sharp pinnacle of Mount Hood, and far beyond that, its younger brother, Jeffer- son. Still beyond are the Alpine peaks of the Three Sisters, nearly two hun- dred miles distant. Our vision sweeps a circle whose diameter is probably five hundred miles. Far westward the white haze betokens the presence of the sea. A deep blue line northwestward, far beyond the smooth dome of St. Helens, stands for Puget Sound. Numerous lakes gleam in woody solitudes.

Having looked around, let us now look down. On the eastern side the mountain breaks off in a monstrous chasm of probably four thousand feet, most of it perpendicular. This is the face toward Yakima. We crawl as we draw near it. Lying down in turn, secured by ropes held behind, fearful as much of the mystic attraction of the abyss as of the slippery snow, we peep over the awful verge. Take your turn, gentle reader, if you would know what it seems to gaze down almost a mile of nearly perpendicular distance. Points of rock jut out from the pile and eye us darkly. That icy floor nearly a mile below us is the Klickitat glacier. From beneath it a milk-white stream issues and crawls off amid the rocky desolation. At the very edge of the great preci- pice stands a cone of ice a hundred feet high. Green, blue, yellow, red and golden, the colors play with the circling sunbeams on its slippery surface, until one is ready to believe that here is where rainbows are made. We roll some rocks from a wind-swept point, and then shudder to see them go. They are lost to the eye, as is their noise to the ear, long before they cease to roll. Silence reigns. There is no echo. The thin air makes the voice sound weak. Our loudest shouts are brief bubbles of noise in the infinite space. A pistol shot is only a puff of powder. Even the rocks we set off are swallowed up and we get no response but the first reluctant clank as they grind the lip of the preci-

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· pice. Nor do we care much for boisterous sounds. We are impelled rather to silence and worship.

But now once more to earth and camp! For pure exhilaration, commend me to descending a snow peak. For a good part of Mount Adams one may descend in huge jumps through the loose scoriae and volcanic ashes. Some of the way one may slide on the crusty snow, a perfect whiz of descent. How the thin wind cuts past us, and how our frames glow with the dizzy speed! Such a manner of descent is not altogether safe. As we are going in one place with flying jumps on the softening snow, a chasm suddenly appears before us. It looks ten feet wide, and how deep, no one could guess. To stop is out of the question. We make a wild bound and clear it, catching a momentary glance into the bluish-green crack as we fly across. We make the descent in an in- credibly short time, only a little more than an hour, whereas it took us over seven hours to ascend. And then the rest and mighty feasts of camp, and the abundant and mountainous yarns, and the roaring camp-fire, whose shadows flicker on the solemn snow-fields, until the stars claim the heavens, and, while the wailing cry of the cougars rises from a jungle far below us, we sleep and perform again in dreams the day's exploits.

Of all scenes in connection with Mount Adams, the most remarkable in all the experiences of those who witnessed it, and one of those rare combinations- which the sublimest aspects of nature afford, was at the time of the outing of the Mazama Club in 1902. The party had reached the summit in a dense fog, cold, bitter, forbidding, and nothing whatever to be seen. All was dull, whit- ish blur. In the bitter chill the enthusiasm of some of the climbers evaporated and they turned away down the snowy waste. Others remained in the hope of a vanishing of the cloud-cap. And suddenly their hopes were realized. A mar- velous transformation scene was unveiled like the lifting of a vast curtain. The cloud-cap was split asunder. The great red and black pinnacles of the summit sprung forth from the mist like the first lines in a developing photo- graphic plate. Then the glistening tiaras and thrones of ice and snow caught the gleams of the unveiled sun, and lo, there we stood in mid-heaven, seem- ingly upon an island in space, with no earth about us, just the sun and the sky above and a great swaying ocean of fog below. But now suddenly that ocean of fog was rent and split. The ardent sun burned and banished it away. Moun- tain peak after peak caught the glory. Range after range seemed to rise and stand in battle array. The transformation was complete. A moment before we were swathed in the densest cloud-cap, blinded with the fog. Now we were standing on a mount of transfiguration, with a new world below us. Every vestige of smoke or fog was gone. We could see the shimmer of the ocean to the west, the glistening bands of Puget Sound and the Columbia. Far east- ward the plains of the Inland Empire lay palpitating in the July sun. The whole long line of the great snow-peaks of the Cascades were there revealed, the farthest a mere speck, yet distinctly discernible, two hundred miles distant. One unaccustomed to the mountains would not believe it possible that such an area could be caught within the vision from a single point.

It may be understood that the description of one of our great snowpeaks is, in general terms, a description of all. With every one there are the same

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azure skies, the same snow-caps, the same crevassed and glistening rivers of - ice, the same long ridges with their intervening grassy and flowery meads, purling streams, and reflecting lakes. With the name of each there rises before Mazama or Mountaineer, the remembrance of the camp of clouds or stars upon the edge of snow-bank, the sound of the bugle at two o'clock in the morning of the great climb, the hastily swallowed breakfast of coffee and ham, while climbers stand shivering around the flickering morning fire, the approaching day with its banners of crimson behind the heights, the daubing of faces with grease-paint and the putting on of goggles, amid shouts of laughter from each at the grotesque and picturesque ugliness of all the others, then the hastily grasped alpenstocks, the forming in line, and at about four o'clock, while the first rays of the sun are gilding the summit, the word of command and the be- ginning of the march.

Each great peak has its zones, so significant that each seems a world in itself. There is first the zone of summer with its fir and cedar forests at the .base of the peak, from a thousand feet to twenty-five hundred above sea-level. In the case of most of our great peaks this zone consists of long gentle slopes and dense forests, with much undergrowth, though on the eastern sides there are frequently wide-open spaces of grassy prairie. Then comes the zone of pine forest and summer strawberry, with its fragrant air and long glades of grass and open aisles of columned trees, "God's first temples," pellucid streams bab- bling over pebbles and white sands, and occasionally falling in cascades over ledges of volcanic rock. This zone rises in terraces which attest the ancient lava flow, at an increasing grade over the first, though at most points one might still drive a carriage through the open pine forests. Then comes the third zone, a zone of parks. The large pine trees now give way to the belts of sub- alpine fir and mountain pine and larch, exquisite for beauty, enclosing the parks and grouped here and there in clumps like those in some old baronial estate of feudal times. This is the zone of rhododendron, shushula, phlox, and painted brush. Through the open glades the ptarmigan and deer wander, formerly unafraid of man, but now, alas, under the ban of civilization. The upward slope has now increased to twenty or twenty-five degrees, and to a party of climbers a frequent rest and the quaffing of the ice-cold stream that dashes through the woods afford a happy feature of the ascent. At the upper edge of this zone, at an elevation of probably seven thousand feet, beside some dashing stream or some clear pool, fed from the snows above, is the place for the camp. Such a camp! Oh, the beauty of such an unspoiled spot!

It is from such a camp at the upper edge of the paradise zone that a party sets forth at the four o'clock hour to attain the highest. So the march on the great day of a final climb carries us at once into a fourth zone. This is the zone of avalanche and glacier, the zone of elemental fury and warfare, a zone of ever-steeping ascent, thirty degrees, a zone of almost winter cold at night, but with such a dazzling brightness and fervor in the day as turns the snow- banks to slush and sends the fountains tearing and cutting across the glaciers and triturating the moraines. Vegetation has now almost ceased, though the , heather still drapes the ledges on the eastern or southern exposures, and occa- sionally one of the tenacious mountain pines upholds the banner of spring in

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some sheltered nook. This wind-swept and storm-lashed zone is also the zone of the wild goats and mountain sheep. On the precipitous ridges and along the narrow ledges at the margin of glaciers they can be seen bounding away at the approach of the party, surefooted and swift at points where the nerve of the best human climber might fail. This zone carries the climbers to ten or eleven thousand feet of elevation on the highest peaks. And here is the place for the Mountaineers and Mazamas to take the half-hour rest on our arduous march. A sweet rest it is. We pick out some sheltered place on the eastern slope, and stretch ourselves at full length on the warm rocks, while the icy wind from the summit goes hurtling above us. And how good the chocolate and the malted milk and the prunes and raisins of the scanty lunch taste, while we rest and feel the might of elemental nature again fill our veins and lungs and hearts

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 2

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134