A Winter Expedition Saw Steam on Rainier—and Asked if the Mountain Was Awake
In December 1895, a Post-Intelligencer party climbed to 9,000 feet, reported smoke and steam from the summit, and left the public demanding proof that Washington's sentinel was an active volcano.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer of Sunday devotes three columns to Washington's snow-clad mountain sentinel, Mount Rainier, several pages of which are devoted to an exhaustive narrative of the Post-Intelligencer's mountain-climbing expedition, made for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of the change in the appearance of the old sentinel. The expedition left Seattle on December 17 and arrived home on December 29. The trip was a very perilous one for this season of the year, and the account of it by the Post-Intelligencer's special correspondent, who accompanied the party, makes very interesting reading. The explorers reached an altitude of 9,000 feet and were prevented from reaching the summit by the raging storm, severe cold and roaring avalanches. They report having seen smoke and steam rising from the summit, and are very positive in their belief that the mountain is an active volcano. The public, however, is not quite satisfied, and will not be until some party reaches the crater.
“They report having seen smoke and steam rising from the summit, and are very positive in their belief that the mountain is an active volcano.”
Mount Rainier is still monitored as an active volcano, and the question of whether the mountain is merely sleeping remains part of Northwest identity. The 1895 expedition's reports of steam and smoke show that curiosity—and newspaper stunts—have long shaped how Seattleites imagine the mountain.
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