With a farewell to Cape Eternity and Rooster Rock we are out of the mountains, and this stage of our long journey is at an end. If we were to compare the section of the River which we have described in this chapter with other great scenes in our country, we would say that this section of the Columbia from Paha Cliffs to Rooster Rock possesses a greater variety than any other. Chelan has loftier cliffs, clearer and deeper water, and a certain chaotic and elemental energy beyond comparison. The Yellowstone has a greater richness of colouring and larger waterfalls, together with the unique features of the geysers. Yosemite has loftier waterfalls and has cliffs that in some respects are even more imposing. Puget Sound has finer distant scenes, with lagoons and channels and archipelagoes. Each of these grand exhibitions of nature's works is equal or even superior to the Columbia Gorge in some special feature. But the River has every feature. It has cliffs and mountains and waterfalls and cataracts, valleys and forests, broad marine views near and distant, colour and form, shore and sky, earth and air and water, a commingling of all elements of beauty, grandeur, and physical interest. Add to this, that, up or down, the broad waters of the River are accessible to every form of floating craft, and that Portland, one of the most beautiful and progressive cities of the West, destined to become one of the great cities of the world, sits at the very gates of admission to this symposium of grandeurs and wonders, and we have such an aggregation of charms that we may well suppose that all the other great scenic regions would bow before our great River and acknowledge him as the king of all. [Illustration: Cape Horn, Columbia River--Looking Up. Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland.] CHAPTER V A Side Trip to Some of the Great Snow-Peaks Attractions of our Mountain Peaks--Relations to the Rivers--Locations of the Greatest and their Positions with Regard to the Cities and the Routes of Travel--The Mountain Clubs--The Peaks, Especially Belonging to the River: Hood, Adams, and St. Helens--A Journey to Hood--Beauty of the Approach through Hood River Valley--Lost Lake--Cloud-Cap Inn and Elliot Glacier--Extreme Steepness of the Ascent--Magnificence of the View--Mt. Adams--The Hunting and Fishing--The Glaciers--The Vegetation about the Snow-Line--The Night Storm--Morning and the Ascent--Views Around, Up, Down--Ascent by the Mazama Club in 1902 and the Transformation Scene--General Similarity of Ascent of our Peaks--Zones of a Snow-Peak. "_Nesika Klatawa Sahale_"