Cascade Range

“ This is a beautiful region; from the bottom can be seen, at different points, seven snow-covered peaks of the Cascade range. [149] The Cascade is within view for a great distance, to the north and [pg. 176] south; which, together with the beautiful scenery in the valley, renders it a picturesque place. Thrifty groves of fir and oak are to be seen in every direction; the earth is carpeted with a covering of luxuriant grass, and fertilized by streams of clear running rivulets, some of which sink down and others pursue their course above ground to the river. ”

“ Again, the Cascade Range has a base from east to west of about forty miles, including the foot-hills. All the west side of this range is densely wooded, making another great supply of timber. The east side, having an entirely different climate, does not support the same heavy growth of trees. ”

“ A mile or two beyond Castle Rock, situated on this bit of warm, sandy bottom-land, on the Washington side, is the little mountain hamlet known as the Lower Cascades. Why it is that one name is made to serve for so many objects, in the same locality, must ever puzzle the tourist in Oregon. At the Cascades the tautology threatens to overwhelm us in perplexity. Not only is it the Cascade Range, which the cascades of the river cut in twain, but there are no less than three points on the north side, within a distance of six miles, known as the Lower, Middle, and Upper Cascades. ”

“ The eastern half of the reserve differs from the western in climate, in flora, and in fauna, in geographic and geologic features, and in aspects of scenery. The eastern slope of the Cascade Range within the reserve is a mountainous region, with summits rising to a general elevation of 6,500 to 7,600 feet above the sea. It is forest covered and presents many attractions to the tourist and hunter; but it is not peculiar among the mountain regions of America either for grandeur or interest, and it is not an essential part of the area to be set apart as a national park. ”

“ Cascade Locks has an elevation of 99 feet.
Cascade Range. The Cascade Range is the great mountain backbone of Oregon and Washington, and divides both states into separate climatic and geographic provinces. Probably the first attempt at a name for the range was by the Spaniard, Manuel Quimper, 1790, who roughly mapped it as Sierra Madras de S. Antonio. In 1792, George Vancouver, the English explorer, gave names to a number of the most prominent peaks, but referred to the range as "snowy range," "ridge of snowy mountains," or "range of rugged mountains." ”

“ The Cascade Range divides the Territory into two unequal parts—eastern and western—differing widely in topography, soil, climate, and productions: the western portion being densely timbered with fir, cedar, oak, etc., with an occasional small prairie, soil varied, river-bottoms sandy mold, with clay sub-soil; high prairies are gravelly or light sand. ”

“ For whose eye has all this beauty been spread, age after age, where human footsteps never come? Let those who believe every thing terrestrial "was made for man," search those places of earth where only God is, and study their adornments.
The view from the peak of our mountain is one long to be remembered. To the north of us stretches the Cascade Range, with its wilderness of mountains, from six to eight thousand feet in height, overtopped by Mount Jefferson and Mount Hood. ”

“ The Coast Range and Cascade Range of mountains are plainly visible from the sound. Near the Columbia river the Coast Range is not very high; but west of Hood's Canal it rises, in abrupt, beetling ridges, 7,000 to 9,000 feet high, called the Olympian Mountains, many of the peaks being snow-crowned throughout the year. The Cascade Range fairly bristles with snow-clad peaks from 8,000 to over 14,000 feet in height, and in every direction, almost, may be seen the grandest Alpine scenery in the distance. ”

“ Coming from the northeast, the Blue Range of Oregon, the Cascade Range from the north, and the Sierra from the south, blend into or form a vast steppe or table-land of lava and sagefields, interspersed with a score of lakes, in size varying from five to forty miles in length, and proportionate width. This high separating belt of land and water commences at the Owyhee River and extends westward to the mountains, running at right angles to the ocean—a length of three hundred miles, and an average breadth of one hundred and fifty. ”

“ Perhaps in the region north of the present Cascade Range there was moderate interbreeding between these populations and the transcontinental form. There may have been a similar zone of interbreeding along the crest of the present Cascades where the intermountain and coastal populations conceivably could have met. At least incipient characters probably were present when in Pleistocene time, continental glaciation further isolated the two populations. ”

“ This morning we started as soon as it was light and, continuing our route round the valley, passed the beautiful cascade seen yesterday and, after fording a clear running brook like an English trout stream, we began to ascend the next sandstone range. ”

“ The Sierra Nevada and Cascade range was elevated at the close of the Jurassic period, but not to its present height. At the end of the Miocene period, simultaneously with the elevation of the Coast range, the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountains were lifted up to their present great elevation, and, under the tremendous pressure, seem to have been rent and fissured along the entire crest from Middle California to the far North in British America. ”

“ The Columbia and the Snake, after uniting, flow westward for about 100 miles, before breaking through the Cascade range. This area is the portion of the United States of which we have the least topographical knowledge, and therefore only its more striking features can be indicated. The north-westerly trend of the northern division of the Rocky Mountains reduces the width of the Cordilleran system as we go north, since the Cascade range remains unchanged in its direction from the southern line of Oregon to the northern boundary of the country. ”

“ It is confined to a small area of the Rocky Mountains, principally west of the main divide; to Western Montana, Eastern Idaho, the Cascade Range in Washington Territory, a small portion of British Columbia, and to Alaska. Secondly, its habitat is the tops or near the tops of the highest and most rugged peaks and cliffs, where none but the hardiest and most daring hunter may venture in pursuit of it, and so comparatively very few are ever killed and brought into the settlements. Third, it can not be successfully domesticated. ”

“ It does not prejudice a country either, in a practical sense, that it is of volanic formation. Such have been the lands where civilization came to the greatest perfection. Probably the east slopes of the Cascades will yet be celebrated in song as “the land of the olive and vine.” It is certain that grapes and peaches raised upon this soil are of excellent flavor.
The lakes which are such a striking feature of the Cascade Range in both Washington and Oregon are not usually of much extent. Echo Lake, on Mount St. ”

“ In early maps the name appears as either Cascade Range or Presidents' Range or both. Greenhow's History of Oregon and California contains a map, compiled in 1838, which gives the name Far West Mountains. Cascade Range appears in Wilkes' Narrative of Oregon in 1841. Good reasons could be adduced for changing to Presidents' Range. The name, Cascade Mountains is not a distinguishing one nor especially appropriate.
But the task of choosing "better" names in the Pacific Northwest would be endless. It may be better to bear with the ills we have than to take on others.
Portland's Canyon Road. ”

“ They believed that a better pass might be discovered through the Cascade range to the south, than that which had been found around the base of Mount Hood, and one which should bring the immigrants in at the upper end of the valley, thus saving them considerable travel and loss of time at a season of the year when the weather was apt to be unsettled. ”

“ To the southeast of Lassen the topographic gap of the Feather River separates the Cascade Range from its correlative, the Sierra Nevada, which extends four hundred miles farther to Tehachapi Pass, but whose lofty peaks owe their height primarily to uplift rather than to volcanic upbuilding. ”

“ If in measuring the area of the Rocky Mountains we 80include the long Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada and its northern continuation, the Cascade Range, according to the extent of surface they cover, we have a million square miles as the result, more than one-fourth of the territory of the republic. ”

“ The streams of the range, as a whole, are strong and deeply bedded. Mountain valleys, once the beds of great glaciers, have been deeply eroded-leaving grand cirques and amphitheaters, such as the water-filled gorge of Lake Chelan, that are among the great attractions of the range. Only the Columbia River crosses the Cascade Mountains. Three tunnels—the Cascade, the Rockdale, and the Stampede—pierce the Cascades for rail transportation; and the Chinook, Stevens, and Snoqualmie passes make them surmountable by highways. ”

“ The majestic range of the Cascade Mountains naturally divides the State into two distinct parts, called Eastern and Western Washington, differing greatly from each other in almost every way, the western section being less than half as large as the eastern, and, with its copious rains and deep fertile soil, being clothed with forests of evergreens, while the eastern section is dry and mostly treeless, though fertile in many parts, and producing immense quantities of wheat and hay. ”

“ It begins in Northern California near the Oregon boundary and extends across the latter State and Washington into British Columbia, where the line of elevations is continued by many small groups which are deeply intersected and eroded by river and lake systems. Its direction in the United States is nearly north and south, parallel to the Pacific Coast; in Oregon the main axis of elevations lies about 100 miles from the coast, while in Washington the distance increases to 150 miles. ”

“ Peaks towering behind and above each other come in sight, and the sun poured down its warmest rays, deepening the shadows and bringing out fresh beauties. The smoky air occasionally added to the landscape by developing the aerial perspective.
We pass Mount Cascade, so named from the small stream issuing from its side at the height possibly of two thousand feet, and descending direct to the valley. This mountain, the summit of which is said to be 5060 feet above the plain, is the most striking of the masses we have yet seen on the journey. ”

“ Ordinarily the stream is very low, and visitors can not only pick their way over rocks and logs to the foot of the Cascade, but can clamber over the granite ledges and pass under the suspended boulder that looks as if at any moment it might slip through upon them. This feat of passing under the rock is always a very damp one, though during the season, troops of damsels may be seen bravely accomplishing it, scornful of the rock above and the wet below—and doing it too without the confident freedom of the Bloomer dress! ”

“ Huge boulders line their banks with a wall of rough and ponderous masonry, entwined with the roots of trees, and like the Ausable Lakes, they are another Alpine formation, their surfaces being at twenty-one hundred feet elevation, yet resting in the bottom of a tremendous chasm. An unique cascade, falling in successive leaps for seven hundred and fifty feet down the southern enclosing mountain wall, has given them the name—a delicate white lace ribbon of foaming water, finally passing into the lower lake. ”

“ At Seven Cascades, on its eastern slope, one of Rogers's Rangers, retreating after the Canadian foray, fell to the ground, too tired for further motion, when a distant music of harps mingled with the cascade's plash, and directly the waters were peopled with forms glowing with silver-white, like the moonstone, that rose and circled, hand in hand, singing gayly as they did so. ”

“ The most of them stand opposite where we considered the shores too gradual to admit of a slide. There are many large nooks in the Mountains, along this part of the River, which are suitable for small settlements. Fifty miles below the Mission we came to the Cascade Falls. – Here the River, compressed into two thirds of its usual width, descends over huge rocks, several hundred yards, with an inclination of about five degrees; and from the head to the foot of the Rapids, a distance of four miles, the water descends about fifty feet. ”

“ A slight indentation of the land affords a somewhat sheltered anchorage-ground, and an opening in the cliffs has supplied a way to the beach 121 by a winding road at the foot of the dividing hills. A stream of water, collected from many ravines, finds its way by a similar opening to a ledge of rock in the neighborhood, and, falling over in feathery spray, has given the name of Cascade to this part of the island. Off this bay, on the morning of the 21st of June, 1842, the brig Governor Philip was sailing, having brought stores for the use of the penal establishment. ”

“ From those beautiful hill-sides silvery cascades came leaping and dancing down into the rich valleys, then twining their lovely arms through this charming [306] landscape, as if they would fain bear off its beauties to the broad ocean, whither they are gliding.
In the meantime, you may be sure, Perozzi made his appearance at the Cascade, where, under some slight pretext, he soon became almost domesticated, merely riding over to the Pen at intervals of two or three days. ”