THESE words were written by one of the heroic members of the last Mount Everest expedition. They typify the the spirit of the pathfinder. Ever since reading in Professor Meany's book on Mount Rainier, the account by August Valentine Kautz of the first attempt to climb the Mountain, it has been my purpose to bring the Kautz Route to the attention of The Mountaineers and the public. Three years ago, four of us, O. B. Sperlin, Wallace Burr, Stella Shahan and I reconstructed the Kautz climb and established his stopping point at about 12,000 feet altitude. Climbing conditions were ideal and we retraced his progress step by step allowing nothing to turn us aside. But we did not complete the climb beyond the Kautz stopping point and so did not make the summit.

On July 11, 1924, sixty-seven years after the first bold attempt, thirteen of us climbed the lower Nisqually Glacier, crossed the moraine to the west and stood in a little mountain meadow where Kautz had made his last camp. We climbed five hundred feet higher and camped that night in a broad valley just under the ridge leading to the summit. The next day we carried our packs from 6,000 feet altitude to 11.000 up a long rock ridge Wapowety Cleaver. Snowfields alternated with broad rock ridges and led us to our climbing camp. The easy slopes and the safety of this approach remind one of the Muir snowfields.

The campsite at 11,000 feet is roomy and protected. One can always move when the wind changes and find comfort. There is water nearby and everything considered the camp is the best temporary camp on the Mountain .

The final climb from this point is a mere 3,000 feet. Under ordinary conditions it should be finished in five hours enabling a party to reach the summit by nine or ten o'clock.

This year. with abnormal snow conditions we encountered difficulties. Just above the climbing camp are immense ice cliffs where the summit snow connects with the lower Kautz Glacier. Three years ago we climbed the thousand feet through these ice cliffs in less than an hour. At no place were we forced to retrace our steps. This year we were blocked when half way through.

Turning back we dropped below the ice cliffs and found beyond them to the west, a steep. smooth tongue of ice with ice walls on both sides. We climbed the west wall on a series of shelves. At one point there was a crack in the ice. Burt Farquharson looked over and discovered that the cliff on which we stood fanned out from the place of the crack. For some reason we left that spot rather hurriedly for a firmer place. Above these cliffs we crossed the tongue of ice where it had become less steep and reached the summit snow field.

We were now at 12.000 feet altitude where, sixty-seven years before, hampered by a high wind and approaching night, Lieutenant Kautz had turned back. Before us lay the Mountain's untrodden snowfields. For a thousand feet we worked our way over a treacherous surface where hidden crevasses lay in wait. With scouts ahead, roped, we worked carefully to the end of a rock cleaver, similar in form to Steamboat Prow. From this point at 13,000 feet, we took a long, easy slant, across the south face of the Mountain and connected with the Gibraltar Route, about five hundred feet below the summit. After signing the record at Register Rock we crossed the crater and climbed Columbia Crest. The return trip required even more care, for the snowfields had softened and the crevasses were dangerous. At the ice cliffs we decided to take a chance and go through the route that had stopped us in the morning. One difficulty after another faced us, but by using the rope down an eight-foot ice wall, a twenty-foot one, and a twelve-foot drop from an ice bridge, we reached our morning trail. On retracing this, we found that literally tons of ice had fallen from the cliffs upon the five hundred feet we had passed over in the morning.

We considered the climb ended at the camp at 11,000 feet, for the return was mere routine. The Mountaineers making the ascent were: Charles B. Browne, F. B. Farquharson, Fred Q. Gorton, Joseph T. Hazard, Mrs. Joseph T. Hazard, Ben C. Mooers, John W. McCrillis. Other people in the party were R. P. Burk head of Portland, Alonzo Troth of Spokane and four members of the Mount Stuart Club of Ellensburg; Herbert C. Fish, Miss Hermie Thompson, J. N. O. Thompson, John Thompson, Jr. The Kautz Route is the safest, and the most natural approach to the summit of Mount Rainier so far discovered. In normal seasons there is no technical difficulty. Even this ear when the summit snow as reduced to a minimum, more time for scouting and the use of a short ladder would have made the way easier. We recommend it to the Special Outing Committee for early July climbs, annually.

Every Mountaineer should reread the Kautz article in Professor Meany's book of Mount Rainier. Although the first complete ascent by the Kautz way was a slow one, beginning in 1857 and ending in 1924, the future ones will be most cheerfully accomplished. Each, in turn, will be a tribute to the memory of a brave explorer, a forceful leader, a true man, August Valentine Kautz.