We reach the base of the Cascade Range, and commence the delightful ascent. The road is well laid on gentle ridges and level benches, the laurel is in full and fragrant bloom, the yellow pine blends with the scrubby black species as we climb, and so gentle is the rise that our gallop is scarcely broken. To our right is a branch of Wood River, appearing at first as a lively creek, but which grows a cañon as we climb, and the dashing of unseen waters tell of the gorge they have worn in the basaltic hills. We have made our swift way upward to where undergrowth is scarce, and the scrubby growth of the black pine forms the rule. My companion halts, and, turning our ponies from the road only a few yards, we stand on the brink of the cañon of Annie’s Creek, look across the chasm to see the basaltic columns walling the farther side as if built there yesterday, discolored by the rust of ages, freshly brought to view, standing hundreds of feet high. Deep down the gorge the turbulence of the foaming waters is seen, the walls are in places climbed and clung to by the tall, tapering hemlocks, and Annie’s Creek Cañon, held up as it is by these prismatic cliffs, forms an object of no common interest. Pine gives way to hemlock, and the presence of snowbanks, some of which invade but scarcely obstruct our way, tell us that we are near the summit. The snow becomes almost universal, but we pass over it unhindered, for it is hard beneath the hoofs. Before evening, with the summit ridge just before us, we come to a camp, where the first wagon of the season, having crossed Siberian ranges and fields of untrodden snow, rests in anticipation of tomorrow’s descent into the grassy meads of Klamath. The Rogue River road at the summit ridge must have an elevation of 7,000 feet, but when we reach the divide and see the waters wending their way westward, we still look up to surrounding heights and snowy summits that remind us that the road follows a low pass in the great mountain chain. Here our difficulties commence, for we have miles of steep climbing to do before we reach the wonder shores of Crater Lake.
