The guardians of the Columbia, Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St Helens . great army of treeswill meet you farbelow. Rimming aboutyour peak, bravingwinds and the snowsthat drift in the leeof old moraines, andstruggling to breakthrough the timber-line, six thousandfeet above the sea,somber mountainhemlocks {Tsugamertensiana) andlighter white-bark pines (Pinus albicaulis) form the thin vanguard of the forest. They meet theglaciers. They border the snow-fields. They hide beneath their stunted,twisted forms the first deep gashes carved in the mountain slopes by erodingstreams. Valiant protector
The guardians of the Columbia, Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St Helens . great army of treeswill meet you farbelow. Rimming aboutyour peak, bravingwinds and the snowsthat drift in the leeof old moraines, andstruggling to breakthrough the timber-line, six thousandfeet above the sea,somber mountainhemlocks {Tsugamertensiana) andlighter white-bark pines (Pinus albicaulis) form the thin vanguard of the forest. They meet theglaciers. They border the snow-fields. They hide beneath their stunted,twisted forms the first deep gashes carved in the mountain slopes by erodingstreams. Valiant protectors of less sturdy trees and plants, their whitenedweather-sides bear witness to a fierce struggle for life on the bleak shouldersof the peaks. Make your way, as the streamlets do, down to the alpine glades, on thehigh plateaus, where anemone, erythronium and calochortus push their budsthrough lingering snow-crusts. The scattered trees gather in their first groups. Alpine Hemlocks at the timber-line on Mt. Adams. Mt. Hood in *&t:^ Mazania Iarty resting among the sub-alpine firs in a tlower-carpetedfoot of Mount St. Helens park at the THE FORESTS 125 Just within theirshelter pause fora moment. Vaguedistance is nar-rowed to a dimin-utive circle. Themystery of vast-ness indeed isthe division be-tween storm-swept barren andforest shelter. Here ravines,decked withheather, holdstreams from thesnowd r if ts—streams that huntthe steepest de-scents, and gloryin their leaps fromrock to rock andfrom cliff to it be the spring-time of the moun-tains- late July—the mossy rills willbe half concealedbeneath fragrantwhite azaleas thatnod in the breezesblowing up with the ascending sun and down with the turnof day. Trailing over the rocks, or banked in the shelterof larger trees, creeping juniper {Juniperus communis), leastof our evergreens, stays the drifting sands against thedrive of winds or the wash of melting snows. Along the streams and on sunny slopes and
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidguardiansofc, bookyear1912
