Souvenir of Rainier National Park Washington 25 CENTS Rainier National Park, Washington. I HE RAINIER NATIONAL PARK is situated in the state of Washington and is a beautiful National Playground, ranging from the dense forests a thousand feet above the sea, through vast flowery meadows to a land of ice and snow around the summit, 14,408 feet. The mountain is an extinct volcano, built up by countless A eruptions of lava and scoria, until it had reached a height of nearly 17,000 feet. The upper part of this summit was then torn away by a terrific explosion and the present crater, 1600 feet in diameter, formed. From the snowy dome of the mountain a system of living glaciers radiate, the ice mass slowly crawling down the mountain side. There are more than twenty glaciers and the total area ice covered exceeds fifty square miles. These glaciers have carved and are carving deep canyons, while between are large, park-like plateaus, rolling upland meadows, broken by groves of Alpine trees and strewn with flowers. At the 4,000 foot level the dense lowland forests change to Alpine growth, which continues to timber-line, nearly 7,000 feet above the sea. Here wild flowers grow in great profusion, following the retreating snows and growing alongside the snow banks. There are 364 differ- ent varieties of flowers, some found nowhere else. MOUNT RAINIER, FROM MIRROR LAKE.' The Government has constructed a splendid auto road from the park boundary to the camps in Paradise Park, at an elevation of 6,000 feet. From the road and the camps a complete system of trails have been built to reach all parts of the park, while guides can take tourists across the unmarked snow-fields and glaciers. This park affords the best opportunity to visit and study glaciers of any place in the United States. The Government road passes within a few hundred feet of the terminus of the Nisqually Glacier, where the river comes roaring out of its icy prison and the upper part of the road ends on the brink of the main glacier, mid-way of its course. Eight thousand feet above, the ice pours off the summit, coming down in beautiful cascades and avalanches, to pass below as a wide stream of ice, seamed with crevasses as wide as a city street and hundreds of feet deep. There are three established routes to the summit; from Paradise Park by the Gibraltar route, from Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground by the Success Cleaver route and the all ice route on the Northeast. In favorable weather anyone of ordinary strength can make the ascent from Paradise in a single day but the other routes require a camp at a high altitude or on the summit itself. Some heat still remains in the main crater and it is possible to spend the night in the steam caves in safety, if not in comfort.—Asahel Curtis.Photo by Curtis Miller Lake Keechelus and Mount Rainier Mount Rainier, from the C. M. St. Paul Tracks ♦ < > 4gl jjy -t -. v v*X*wk ■ , ■BaEv*- - a XjS y- ■, A i db . i -JHL-x jaB f Mount Rainier and the Government Road. Copyright } 913 by Entrance to Rainier National § ! =, § ! 1 ! 89 i-lfc?. ’ Mt. Rainier, as seen from the Northwest, over a waving sea forest. Mt. Rainier, from the South Fork of the Tahoma Photo by Asahel Curtis National Park Im Mt. Rainier, from National Park Inn Photo by Asahel Curtis Copyright 1913 by H. L. TolesPhoto by Curtis &. Miller Mount Rainier from Van Trump Park Tahoma Glacier and Mount Rainier. 1 .4. — ? .?'r " • I ' JT* ’WVY ' >■ '.V V alFW '-?' V * *Photo by Asahel Curtis Sluiskin Falls, 150 feet Mount Rainier. Photo by Curtis &. Miller. Igv*’ ^;- 3*' SEE WASHINGTON FIRST.” THE SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA. COMET FALLS ON THE SLOPES OF MT. RAINIER.J|* ^X 1Jo^by#Cuhis & Miller Copyright 1910 by Curtis Miller.Photo by Asahel Curtis Mount Rainier, from Indian Henry Trail.Photo by Asahel Curtis A Crevasse on Mount Rainier. J Photo by Asahel Curtis.Photo by Asahel Curtis, Climbing Mount Rainier Photo by Asahel Curtis. Mountain Flowers, Purple Asters, in Mount Rainier National Park.Photo by Asahel Curtis Mountain Flowers, Indian Basket Grass, growing on Mount Rainier National Park. Photo by Asahel Curtis. Mountain Flowers, White Heather, growing on Mount Rainier.Copyright by Asahel Curtis Mountain Flowers, The Primrose, on Mount Rainier, J* Mountain Flowers, Avalanche Lilies, growing on Mount Rainier. Photo by Asahel Curtis,