[Illustration { p.118}: Copyright, 1909, By Asahel Curtis. Amphitheatre of Carbon Glacier, the most noteworthy example of glacial sculpture upon the Mountain. It is nearly three miles wide. No other glacier has cut so deeply into the side of the peak. The Carbon was once two glaciers, separated by a ridge, of which a remnant is still seen in the huge spine of rock extending down from Liberty Cap.]
[Illustration { p.119}: Photo By Lea Bronson. Copyright, 1909, By P. V. Caesar. Avalanche falling on Willis Wall, at head of Carbon Glacier amphitheatre. The cliff, up to the snow cap on the summit, is more than 4,000 feet high and nearly perpendicular. Avalanches fall every day, but this picture of a big one in action is probably unique. Willis Wall was named for Bailey Willis, the geologist.]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1909, By A. H. Waite. Birth of Carbon River, with part of Willis Wall visible in distance. The great height of this ice front appears on noting the man near the river.]
It was not until August 17, 1870, thirteen years after Kautz's partial victory, that the Mountain was really conquered. This was by P. B. Van Trump of Yelm and Hazard Stevens, son of the first governor of Washington, who had distinguished himself in the Civil War, and was then living at Olympia as a Federal revenue officer. Each of these pioneers on the summit has published an interesting account of how they got there, General Stevens in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for November, 1876, and Mr. Van Trump in the second volume of _Mazama_. In Stevens's article, "The Ascent of Takhoma," his acquaintance with the Indians of the early territorial period, gives weight to this note:
Tak-ho-ma or Ta-ho-ma among the Yakimas, Klickitats, Puyallups, Nisquallys and allied tribes is the generic term for mountain, used precisely as we use the word "Mount," as Takhoma Wynatchie, or Mount Wynatchie. But they all designate Rainier simply as Takhoma, or The Mountain, just as the mountain men used to call it "Old He."
Sluiskin, an Indian celebrity whom they employed as a guide, led the young men the longest and hardest way, taking them over the Tatoosh mountains instead of directly up the Nisqually and Paradise canyons. From the summit of that range, they at last looked across the Paradise valley, and beheld the great peak "directly in front, filling up the whole view with an indescribable aspect of magnitude { p.121} and grandeur." Below them lay "long green ridges projected from the snow belt, with deep valleys between, each at its upper end forming the bed of a glacier."