1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Summit

This is a forum for trip reports that pre-date the Portland Hikers forum, trail photos from pre-digital era, or any other discussions that focus on trail history.
Post Reply
User avatar
K.Wagner
Posts: 652
Joined: June 2nd, 2013, 1:25 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by K.Wagner » October 15th, 2013, 6:10 pm

payslee,

That is truly an amazing find! Thanks for sharing it!
Kelly
There is no shortcut to anyplace worth going to.

PM me about the soon to be released:
Skamania 231
"How to really get off the beaten path in Skamania County"

User avatar
Peabody
Posts: 524
Joined: August 12th, 2011, 8:37 pm

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by Peabody » October 22nd, 2013, 8:53 pm

I attempted to trace the route based on the descriptions found in the trip report. I used older topo's and took some educated guesses. It's not perfect but should be pretty close.

Here's the route on caltopo.com

Here's the Oregonian article.
news1.JPG
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

payslee

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by payslee » October 23rd, 2013, 7:52 am

Peabody wrote:I attempted to trace the route based on the descriptions found in the trip report. I used older topo's and took some educated guesses. It's not perfect but should be pretty close.

Here's the route on caltopo.com
Thanks peabody!!

That map is awesome! And I love how back in the day, hiking trips were newsworthy, even when they didn't end in disaster.

-payslee

User avatar
romann
Posts: 2417
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by romann » November 7th, 2013, 9:02 pm

Wow - great find! I liked the old photos, and the whole trip setup. Sometimes they mention going on trails - it's interesting if the larger part of the hike was on or off-trail?

Also, it's interesting choice to go over East side of Goat Rocks, from McCall Basin to Surprise Lake, and then around the wall below Gilbert Peak with barely mentioning it like no big deal :) (shows that round-Goat-Rocks trip is quite doable).

I tried to compare landscapes on their photos with recent images, to see how much the things changed. The first view is from SW side of Klickitat River Basin.
This is 1911
Image

And this is around 2010-2012. Note the meadow in the middle, and R-shaped group of trees (arrow) on this meadow. I see almost no change at all in the last 100 years!
Image

By contrast, this is Shoe Lake - big change!
1911
Image

And in 2012
Image

The next photo, #58 (page 35) description is a bit undefined, in that they call this place Coleman's Weed Patch and only say (p. 34) they went over Lake Corral, without mentioning Sheep Lake anywhere. However, this photo definitely looks like Sheep Lake - so they might have visited it on the way to Corrall (plus, as seen with Google Earth, one cannot see Adams from Lake Corral). Photo #56 looks pretty much like present-day PCT location on the west side of the ridge, on the way to Sheep Lake.
1911
Image
Sheep Lake 2012 (note the hills behind the lake now forested)
Image

Also, it's interesting that they mentioned (and pictured?) strong sulfur fumes rising from Mt. Adams crater.

User avatar
Peabody
Posts: 524
Joined: August 12th, 2011, 8:37 pm

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by Peabody » November 8th, 2013, 6:57 pm

Romann,
Love the investigative work on the photos. Below is an image from a 1907 topo map showing the location of Coleman Weedpatch. I used the old topo's to guesstimate the route on the Caltopo map. Link to download 1907 topo.
Poor Coleman. He watched while others had mountains and rivers named after them but he had to be satisfied giving his name to a weedpatch. And in death, the USGS took that from him. So sad. :cry:
1907 mt adams topo.JPG
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

User avatar
romann
Posts: 2417
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Vancouver, WA

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by romann » November 10th, 2013, 10:22 pm

There's Coleman Glacier on Mt. Baker, but I don't know if it was named after that Coleman or someone else.

Downloaded that old topo - it shows a trail E from Cispus Pass, to Surprise Lake! Now it's really getting interesting, I didn't see a trace of it from PCT, but wasn't aware or looking for it. Something to check out next time I'm there.

And yes, now it doesn't look very likely that they went by Sheep Lake (which is off the trail they used, and not even on their map), might be some tarn on Coleman weed patch with very similar topography.

raven
Posts: 1531
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by raven » November 10th, 2013, 11:01 pm

That trail east from Cispus Pass into the reservation was obvious a few years ago.

airoff
Posts: 422
Joined: March 15th, 2012, 8:35 am
Location: Portland, OR

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by airoff » December 28th, 2013, 12:18 am

Sean should make a day hike out of this.

:)

User avatar
Peabody
Posts: 524
Joined: August 12th, 2011, 8:37 pm

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by Peabody » November 23rd, 2015, 7:12 pm

Sometimes I can get easily distracted when reading a trip report. For example, I was enjoying the latest adventures of Sean & Jojo and Sean mentioned they stopped at Sheep Lake. For whatever reason, I remember Sheep Lake being mentioned in an old thread, so I immediately stopped reading Sean's excellent trip report (I'm sure they made it back safely) and started searching for the thread that had mentioned Sheep Lake. I found it, only to discover that the link I was hoping to find was "Geo Styled" by the original poster. Remembering bits and pieces I was able to Google a bit and find the link I was looking for......here

But I also found a longer narrative of the trip here starting on page 13

Very interesting read, for example:

The previous day the group had climbed Mt Adams from the north and descended to the south....then.....
The following day Miss Lulie Nettleton, Mr. Gorton and
Mr. Bennett made a second climb of the mountain, leaving
Morrison Creek camp at four fifty-five, following the even snow
slopes of the south side and reaching the summit at eleven.
They spent two hours on top. then coasting most of the way,
came down more than five thousand feet in forty-five minutes,
returned to our camp of the night before for an hour's rest
and joined the main party at Trout Lake thirteen miles farther
on, coming in just as camp-fire was over.
Now that's bad ass.
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E.B. White

Limey
Posts: 706
Joined: December 19th, 2012, 2:34 pm

Re: 1911 Mountaineers trip: Rainier, Goat Rocks, & Adams Sum

Post by Limey » November 24th, 2015, 8:42 am

Thanks Chase, great narrative. Of course I got sucked in to reading the whole booklet. Can't believe that some of them went immediately to climb Mt. Hood. Now that is Bad Ass.

Post Reply