tiful valley of the same name
above, and, still climbing, reach Camp of the Clouds and its
picturesque tent hotel. The road has brought you a zigzag journey of
twenty-five miles to cover an air-line distance of twelve and a gain
in elevation of 3,600 feet. It is probably unique in its grades. It
has no descents. Almost everywhere it is a gentle climb. {p.062}
Below Longmire Springs the maximum grade is 2.5 per cent., and the
average, 1.6 per cent. Beyond, the grade is steeper, but nowhere more
than 4 per cent.

[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer. Tatoosh Mountains and
Paradise Park in Winter.]

The alignment and grades originally planned have been followed, but
for want of funds only one stretch, a mile and a quarter, has yet been
widened to the standard width of eighteen feet. Lacking money for a
broader road, the engineers built the rest of it twelve feet wide.
They wisely believed that early opening of the route for vehicles to
Paradise, even though the road be less than standard width, would
serve the public by making the Park better known, and thus arouse
interest in making it still more accessible. It will require about
$60,000 to complete the road to full width, and render it thoroughly
secure.

[Illustration: Copyright, 1911, By J. H. Weer.
Hiking through Paradise in Winter.]

Of still greater importance, however, to the safety of the Park and
its opening to public use is the carrying out of Mr. Ricksecker's fine
plan for a road around the Mountain. His new map of the Park, printed
at the end of this volume, shows the route proposed. Leaving the
present road near Christine Falls, below the Nisqually glacier, he
would double back over the hills to Indian Henry's, thence dropping
into the canyon of Tahoma {p.064} Fork, climbing up to St. Andrew's
Park, and so working round to the Mowich glaciers, Spray Falls, and
the great "parks" on the north. The snout of each glacier would be
reached in turn, and the high plateaus which the glaciers have left
would be visited.

[Illustration {p.063}: Copyright, 1910, By Asahel Curtis. Waterfall
from snowfields on ridge above Paradise Valley.]

[Illustration: Looking from Stevens Glacier down into Stevens Canyon,
and across the Tatoosh and Cascade ranges to Mt. Adams.]

Crossing Spray Park, Moraine Park and Winthrop glacier's old bed, the
road would ascend to Grand Park and the Sour-Dough country--a region
unsurpassed anywhere on the Mountain for the breadth