izations of similar purpose
have climbed to Crater Peak, either in company with the Western clubs
named, or in smaller parties. Noteworthy accounts of these ascents
have been printed in the publications of the several clubs, as well as
in magazines of wider circulation, and have done much to make the
Mountain known to the public. The principal articles are cited in a
bibliographical note at the end of this volume.

[Illustration {p.128}: Looking down from Ptarmigan Ridge into the
Canyon of the North Mowich Glacier and up to the cloud-wreathed Peak.]

{p.129}
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. View looking west
across Moraine Park and Carbon Glacier to Mother Mountains.]

V.

THE FLORA OF THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES.

By PROF. J. B. FLETT.[7]

[Footnote 7: Prof. Flett knows the Mountain well. He has
spent many summers in its "parks," has climbed to its
summit four times, has visited all its glaciers, and has
made a remarkable collection of its flowers. In addition
to the chapter on the botany of the National Park, this
book is indebted to him for several of its most valuable
illustrations.]

Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along
the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest in form. Its
massive white dome rises out of its forests, like a world by
itself. Above the forests there is a zone of the loveliest
flowers, fifty miles in circuit and nearly two miles wide, so
closely planted and luxuriant that it seems as if Nature, glad to
make an open space between woods so dense and ice so deep, were
economizing the precious ground, and trying to see how many of
her darlings she can get together in one mountain
wreath--daisies, anemones, columbines, erythroniums, larkspurs,
etc., among which we wade knee-deep and waist-deep, the bright
corollas in myriads touching petal to petal. Altogether this is
the richest subalpine garden I ever found, a perfect floral
elysium.--_John Muir: "Our National Parks."_

No one can visit the Mountain without being impressed by its wild
flowers. These are the more noticeable because of their high color--a
common characteristic of flowers in alpine regions. As we visit the
upland meadows at a season when the spring flowers of the lowlands
have gone to seed, we find there another s