[Illustration: North side of Mount Hood, from ridge several miles west of Cloud Cap Inn. View shows gorges cut by the glacier-fed streams. Cooper Spur is on left sky line. Barret Spur is the great ridge on right, with Ladd glacier canyon beyond. Coe glacier is in center.] II. THE MOUNTAINS. Silent and calm, have you e'er scaled the height Of some lone mountain peak, in heaven's sight? --_Victor Hugo._ There stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpen glow, looming immensely high, beaming with intelligence. It seemed neither near nor far.... The whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with ineffable repose and beauty, before which we could only gaze with devout and lowly admiration.--_John Muir._ [Illustration: Winter on Mount Hood. The roof of the club house of the Portland Snow-shoe Club is seen over the ridge.] FROM the heights which back the city of Portland on the west, one may have a view that is justly famous among the fairest prospects in America. Below him lies the restless city, busy with its commerce. Winding up from the south comes the Willamette, its fine valley narrowed here by the hills, where the river forms Portland's harbor, and is lined on either side with mills and shipping. Ten miles beyond, the Columbia flows down from its canyon on the east, and turns northward, an expanding waterway for great vessels, to its broad pass through the Coast Range. In every direction, city and country, farm and forest, valley and mountain, stretches a noble perspective. From the wide rivers and their shining borders, almost at sea level, the scene arises, terrace upon terrace, to the encircling hills, and spreads across range after range to the summits of the great Cascades. [Illustration: COPYRIGHT G. M. WEISTER Watching the climbers from the plaza at Cloud Cap Inn, northeast side of Mount Hood. Immediately in front, Eliot glacier is seen, dropping into its canyon on the right. On the left is Cooper Spur, from which a sharp ascent leads to the summit of the peak.] Dominating all are the snow-peaks, august sentinels upon the horizon. On a clear day, the long line of them begins far down in central Oregon, and numbers six snowy domes. But any average day includes in its glory the three nearest, Hood, Adams, and St. Helens. Spirit-like, they loom above the soft Oregon haze, their glaciers signaling from peak to peak, and their shining summits bidding the sordid world below to look upward. [Illustration: Mount Hood, elevation 11,225 feet]