As the lowlander cannot be said to have truly seen the element of water at all, so even in his richest parks and avenues he cannot be said to have truly seen trees. For the resources of trees are not developed until they have difficulty to contend with; neither their tenderness of brotherly love and harmony, till they are forced to choose their ways of life where there is contracted room. The various action of trees, rooting themselves in inhospitable rocks, stooping to look into ravines, hiding from the search of glacial winds, reaching forth to the rays of rare sunshine, crowding down together to drink at sweetest streams, climbing hand in hand the difficult slopes, gliding in grave procession over the heavenward ridges--nothing of this can be conceived among the unvexed and unvaried felicities of the lowland forest.--_Ruskin: "Modern Painters."_ [Illustration: Outposts of the Forest. Storm-swept White-bark Pines on Mount Hood.] STAND upon the icy summit of any one of the Columbia's snow-peaks, and look north or west or south across the expanse of blue-green mountains and valleys reaching to the sea; your eyes will rest upon the greatest forest the temperate zone has produced within the knowledge of man. Save where axe and fire have turned woodland into field or ghostly "burn," the mantle is spread. Along the broad crests of the Cascades, down the long spurs that lead to the valleys, and across the Coast Range, lies a wealth of timber equaled in no other region. The outposts of this great army of trees will meet you far below. [Illustration: Alpine Hemlocks at the timber-line on Mt. Adams. Mt. Hood in distance.] Rimming about your peak, braving winds and the snows that drift in the lee of old moraines, and struggling to break through the timber-line, six thousand feet above the sea, somber mountain hemlocks (_Tsuga mertensiana_) and lighter white-bark pines (_Pinus albicaulis_) form the thin vanguard of the forest. They meet the glaciers. They border the snow-fields. They hide beneath their stunted, twisted forms the first deep gashes carved in the mountain slopes by eroding streams. Valiant protectors of less sturdy trees and plants, their whitened weather-sides bear witness to a fierce struggle for life on the bleak shoulders of the peaks. [Illustration: Mazama Party resting among the sub-alpine firs in a flower-carpeted "park" at the foot of Mount St. Helens] Make your way, as the streamlets do, down to the alpine glades, on the high plateaus, where anemone, erythronium and calochortus push their buds through lingering snow-crusts. The scattered trees gather in their first groups. Just within their shelter pause for a moment. Vague distance is narrowed to a diminutive circle. The mystery of vastness passes. Sharp indeed is the division between storm-swept barren and forest shelter.