Cowlitz River

“ Cowlitz Cleaver. Near the southern peak of the summit. It is appropriately named, as it cleaves the higher streams of ice part of which flow into Puget Sound and the rest into the Columbia River.
Cowlitz Divide. A ridge running from north to south in the southeastern corner of the Park.
Cowlitz Glacier. Named by General Hazard Stevens and P. B. Van Trump in 1870 when they discovered it to be the source of the river by that name. It has its beginning from a group of smaller glaciers on the southeast slope of the mountain. Above the glaciers lies Cowlitz Park. ”

“ After two days we entered the Columbia, one of the noblest of rivers. After three days, with a head wind all the time, we entered the mouth of the Cowlitz, a beautiful stream, but so swift that none but Indians can navigate it. We had to hire five Indians for $50.00 to take us up. Four days brought us to what is called the upper landing of the Cowlitz. Here ended our river travel—by far the most pleasant journey I ever made. There we met Samuel and Billy who with Tom had taken the cattle by the trail. ”

“ I started on the trip June 11th, and went down the Willamette to Portland in a steamer. From Portland I boarded another steamer and traveled down the Willamette and Columbia Rivers about 70 miles to the mouth of the Cowlitz River. From this point I went up the Cowlitz River in an Indian canoe, propelled by two or three Indian men with poles, about 35 or 40 miles, as far as the Cowlitz Farms Landing. From Cowlitz Landing I rode horse back 50 or 60 miles to Olympia, at the head of Puget Sound, where I arrived June 16. ”

“ An Indian canoe, with Indians to steer, carries one rapidly and pleasantly down stream—while the excitement of passing the rapids, and the splendid scenery of the wild, little river, furnish entertainment.
So disguised in a luxuriance of trees and shrubbery is the mouth of the Cowlitz, that, when we are in the open Columbia, we can scarcely detect the place of our exit from it. Crossing over to the Oregon side we find ourselves at Rainier, where lumber is manufactured, chiefly for export. ”

“ The lands ceded by the Waukikam and Konniack bands of Chinooks is everywhere densely covered with timber, and has many very valuable mill-powers upon it ; that part lying upon, and for two or three miles back from the Columbia, is very hilly with many bluffs and deep ravines. The balance is mod- erately rolling, and susceptible of cultivation. The Cowlitz river near the east side of the tract is sufficiently large for Steamboats to the rapids fifteen miles up from the Columbia, at the rapids it is a series of falls suitable for Milling purposes which extend many miles interior. ”

“ At fre- quent intervals, forest trails lead off into the wilderness. The main side road ends at M1dway Guard Stat1on, 45 m., although it will eventually be extended to Yakima. East of Randle, State 5 runs parallel with the general course of the twisting Cowlitz River, traverses a meadowland draining into SILVER CREEK, crosses the COWLITZ, 57 m., over a steel span, then runs along the base of precipitous rocky slopes recording the geologic con- vulsions of this area. At 63.3 m. is a junction with a forest road. ”

“ There arose great strife as to who should receive and care for the strange men. Each tribe or village was very anxious to have them, or at least one of them. The Quienaults, the Chehales, and the Willapas, from the beach on the north side, came to press their claims. From up the river came the Cowlitz, the Cascades, and even the Far-off Klickitat. ”

“ About forty miles below fort Vancouver there comes in a {115} stream called Cowlitz; twenty-five miles up this stream there is a French settlement of about twenty families. Like those in the settlement upon the east side of the Willamette river, they have served out their term of years in the H. B. Company, have taken claims, and become an industrious and thriving population. ”

“ The Willam- ette River, and the Colvmibia and Cowlitz rivers, served, with steamboats, as almost the only avenues of transportation. Roads were bad and practically impassable in Winter. Occa- sional stage lines were operated in favorable season between the main towns — Portland, Oregon City, Salem, Lafayette, Albany, Winchester (near Roseburg) and Jacksonville, Cres- cent City, Yreka, arid the Klamath and Trinity River mines, and between the head of Cowlitz navigation, near the modern town of Kelso, and 01) rmpia. ”

“ It was at once evident that the lake was upon a summit, or divide, between the waters of the Nisqually and Cowlitz rivers. The ridge which we were ascending lay north and south, and led directly up to the mountain.
We camped, as the twilight fell upon us, in an aromatic [114] grove of balsam firs. A grouse, the fruit of Sluiskin's rifle, broiled before the fire, and impartially divided gave a relish to the dry bread and coffee. After supper we reclined upon our blankets in front of the bright, blazing fire, well satisfied. ”

“ Immediately adjoining the Paradise Glacier on the northeast, and not separated from it by any definite barrier, lies the Cowlitz Glacier, one of the stateliest ice streams of Mount Rainier. It flows in a southeasterly direction, and burrows its nose deeply into the forest-covered hills at the mountain's foot. Its upper course consists of two parallel-flowing ice streams, intrenched in profound troughs, which they have enlarged laterally until now only a narrow, ragged crest of rock remains between them, resembling a partition a thousand feet in height. ”

“ The two streams unite in that green vale over which Dr. Arnold used to gaze in humorous despair. “It is no wonder,” he said, “we do not like looking that way, when one considers that there is nothing fine between us and the Ural Mountains;” and, in a letter to Archbishop Whately,” ... we have no hills, no plains, not a single wood, and but one single copse; no heath, no down, no rock, no river,{22} no clear stream, scarcely any flowers—for the lias is particularly poor in them—nothing but one endless monotony of enclosed fields and hedge-row trees;” ”

“ The best-informed mountain men represented the approaches on the south and southeast as by far the most favorable. The Nisqually-Cowlitz trail, then, seemed much the best, for the Nisqually, heading in the south and southwest slopes, and the Cowlitz, in the southeastern, afforded two lines of approach, by either of which the distance to the mountain, after leaving the trail, could not exceed thirty miles. ”

“ Claverack Creek unites with Stockport Creek just west of the falls. In other connections both streams are called mill streams. In the Stephen Bayard patent of 1741, the name of the fall on Stockport Creek is noted as "A certain fall . . . called by the Indians Kasesjewack" The several names are perhaps from Cochik'uack (Moh.) , "A wild, dashing" stream. Cochik'uack, by the way, is one of the most corrupted names of record.
[FN] "We came to a creek, where, near the river, lives a man whom they call the Child of Luxury (t'kinder van walde) . ”

“ We stood at the lower end of a smooth, green glade, through which a broad stream—a river, almost—came swirling, its murmur drowned in the thunder of the waterfall behind us, which the bushes now concealed. The glade was, in fact, a valley-bottom, thinned of undergrowth and set with tall trees; and the stream such a stream as tumbles through many an English deer-park. The whole scene might have been transplanted from England but for a wall of naked cliff, sharply serrated, which enclosed the valley on the left. ”

“ Yet the two are linked by the same stream, which begins life as a brawling Cheviot burn, having for its fellows the head waters of the Rede, the Coquet, and the Till, with the scores of little dancing rills that feed them.
Nowhere in this land of swelling hills and grassy fields can one get out of either sight or sound of running water. Every little dip in the hills has its watercourse, every vale its broader stream, and the pleasant sound of their murmurings and sweet babbling fills in the background of every remembrance of days spent upon the green slopes of the Cheviots. ”

“ But the highway which would challenge the world for its equal in grand scenery would extend from the Cowlitz Pass northward along the crest of the range to the Cascade branch. The distance is 50 miles, 31 in the park and 19 beyond it to the railroad. Within the reserve the summit is open and park-like. On the east is a sea of mountains; on the west is a bold descent of 3,000 feet to the valleys of Cowlitz and White rivers, beyond which Tacoma rises in overpowering grandeur, 8,000 feet above the road and only 12 miles distant. ”

“ Since this pass is 160 feet above the summit-level, another tunnel will become necessary at this point. Its length will be 3,550 feet. The streams crossed by this division are a few very insignificant brooklets in the eastern end. The Coqui-pac (Black River) , I believe, can be turned into the feeder without difficulty, by simply connecting a small dam and a waste-weir. Its floods are said to be inconsiderable, even when other rivers are much swollen; and this looks plausible on account of the small area it drains. ”

“ Alders and willows overhang the stream, which winds its way to the south-west, and about two miles farther on one arrives again at Cowley Bridge. The Valley of the Exe gets ever wider and flatter, and after Exeter has been passed the flatness on either side of the banks increases as the river draws near the estuary. ”

“ It answers to the depression of the Cowlitz Valley; and it is remarkable, that, wherever a stream comes into the Columbia large enough to be said to have a valley, there is on the opposite side a break in, or a curvature of, the. highlands, making more or less level country facing the valley which is perpendicular to it, so that the valleys of the streams may be said to cross the Columbia, and, even, to be widest on the opposite side. Somewhere in here the Claskenine, a stream with a fertile and partially cultivated valley, enters the Columbia from the Oregon side ”

“ The main Nisqually glacier issues from the deep abyss overhung by the vast rock along the face of which our route of ascent lay, and extends in a narrow and somewhat crooked canyon for two miles. The ice at its extremity rises in an abrupt wall five hundred feet high, and a noisy torrent pours out with great force from beneath. This feature is characteristic of every glacier. The main Cowlitz glacier issues from the southeast side, just to the right of our ridge of ascent. ”

“ The Coquille Valley consists of tracts of fertile land on the main river and its branches, aggregating a hundred miles in length by one to three in width. Its population is more agricultural than that on Coos Bay, and has made greater improvements in farms. Coquille City is situated on a bend of the river about twelve miles from the ocean, and is a pretty town of about one thousand inhabitants. Without having a harbor of much consequence, Coquille has maintained for many years a coasting trade in vessels drawing from seven to nine feet. ”

“ Crevasses in Cowlitz Glacier, with waterfall dropping from Cowlitz Park, over basaltic cliffs.
The wide area which the Mountain thrusts far up into the sky is a highly efficient condenser of moisture. ”

“ All through the afternoon the folded gullies between the slopes unwound themselves interminably, little by little, as the voyagers traced up the river, paddling almost due southward, along its loops and meanders.
But by nightfall they had turned the last spur of the range, and the next morning opened to them a vastly different landscape: an undulating country, wooded like a park, with hills indeed, but scattered ones to the south and west, and behind the hills the faint purple dome of a far-distant mountain, so faintly seen that at first Ruth mistook it for a cloud. ”

“ John Flood on a bright September morning in 1885.
He sat on a thyme-covered hummock by the valley stream, with knees drawn up and palms pressed against his aching head: sat as he had been sitting for half an hour past, a shovel beside him and an empty sack, which he had brought down to fill with clean river-sand. A chaffinch, fresh from his bath, flitted incessantly between the rail of the footbridge, a dozen yards below, and the boughs of a tamarisk beside it. He paid no attention to Parson Jack. Few living creatures ever did. ”

“ At his feet the land sloped away towards the north in a gradual descent to the Solent, clothed in dense oak woods, through which meandered three narrow openings of the sea. The one towards the north-west was the most important, and looked a noble inlet as it lay gleaming like silver far down below, embowered in dense oak forest. The creek more to the north-east seemed very narrow at the entrance, but widened out into a splendid sheet of water as it penetrated farther inland. The dense virgin forest surrounded the glassy surface, and there was no trace of life anywhere. ”

“ In 1848 water was first introduced from Lake Cochituate, through a brick conduit (except the cast-iron syphon over Charles River) , oviform in shape, large end down, 6.33 feet high and 5 feet wide. Its length is 14.627 miles, with a total fall of 4.26 feet. It has a capacity of delivering 16 million gallons daily, with a velocity of one foot per second. The area of water surface, at full water, of Lake Cochituate is 800 acres; when drawn down 10 feet or level of the flow line of conduit, the area is 489 acres. Elevation is 134.36 feet, and bottom of conduit at dam 121 feet above tide level. ”

“ He pointed up the river to a small town which seemed to run toppling down a steep hill and spread itself like a landslip at the base. "I got a sister living there, if we can only fetch across; a very powerful woman; widowed, and sells fish."
We took an oblique line down the hillside, and descended, some two or three hundred yards below the ferry, upon a foreshore firm for the most part and strewn with flat stones, but melting into mud by the water's edge. A small trading ketch lay there, careened as the tide had left her ”