The Mountain That Smoked: A Seattle Expedition Finds Fire Under Rainier
A Post-Intelligencer party climbs to 9,000 feet, is stopped by glaciers and icy chasms, and reports that Mount Rainier is volcanic.
The exploring expedition sent out by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to investigate the smoke that came from Mount Rainier has returned and decided that the old mountain has internal fires. The party ascended 9,000 feet, but were stopped at that point by impassable glaciers and icy chasms. They say that there is no doubt of the volcanic character of Mount Rainier. — Syracuse Post.
“They say that there is no doubt of the volcanic character of Mount Rainier.”
Mount Rainier is indeed an active volcano, though its last major eruption was about a thousand years ago. The 1895 expedition's confidence in the mountain's 'internal fires' was an early local attempt to read Rainier's moods, a pursuit that continues today in volcanic monitoring and hazard planning for the Puget Sound region.
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