Range before attempting the trip.

"Do you see Pinnacle Peak up there?" they ask you. "If you can make that
you can make Rainier. Better try it first."

And many who try Pinnacle Peak do not make it.

As with every very lofty mountain the view from the summit depends upon
the conditions of the moment. Often Rainier's summit is lost in mists
and clouds, and there is no view. Very often on the clearest day clouds
continually gather and dissipate; one is lucky in the particular time he
is on top. Frequently there are partial views. Occasionally every
condition favors, and then indeed the reward is great. S.F. Emmons, who
made the second ascent, and after whom one of Rainier's greatest
glaciers was named, stood on the summit upon one of those fortunate
moments. The entire mountain in all its inspiring detail lay at his
feet, a wonder spectacle of first magnitude.

"Looking to the more distant country," he wrote, "the whole stretch of
Puget Sound, seeming like a pretty little lake embowered in green, could
be seen in the northwest, beyond which the Olympic Mountains extend out
into the Pacific Ocean. The Cascade Mountains, lying dwarfed at our
feet, could be traced northward into British Columbia and southward into
Oregon, while above them, at comparatively regular intervals, rose the
ghostlike forms of our companion volcanoes. To the eastward the eye
ranged over hundreds of miles, over chain on chain of mountain ridges
which gradually disappeared in the dim blue distance."

Notwithstanding the rigors of the ascent parties leave Paradise Inn for
the summit every suitable day. Hundreds make the ascent each summer. To
the experienced mountain-climber it presents no special difficulties. To
the inexperienced it is an extraordinary adventure. Certainly no one
knows his Mount Rainier who has not measured its gigantic proportions in
units of his own endurance.

The first successful ascent was made by General Hazard Stevens and P.B.
Van Trump, both residents of Washington, on August 17, 1870. Starting
from James Longmire's with Mr. Longmire himself as guide up the
Nisqually Valley, they spent several days in finding the Indian
Sluiskin, who should take them to the summit. With him, then, assuming
Longmire's place, Stevens and Van Trump started on their great
adventure. It proved more of an adventure than they anticipated, for not
far below the picturesque falls which they named after Sluiskin, the
Indian stopped and begged t