Mountain Fever : Historic Conquests of Rainier

"The spirit of the pioneering mountaineer emanates from Mountain Fever, a superb account of the 19th century conquests of the highest and most imposing of Pacific Northwest mountains, Mt. Rainier. [This] is the history of organized mountaineering in the Northwest as well as of Mt. Rainier and those who accepted its challenge. It carries those stories to the turn of the century when Mt. Rainier achieved the status of a national park." – Portland Oregonian

The story begins with the day Captain George Vancouver sighted the snowy mountain in 1792. The author sifted accounts of the first climbers: Dr. William F. Tolmie who went to the ridge above the forks of the Mowich River in 1833, the Bailey-Edgar-Ford party which may have reached the summit in 1851, the unknown climbers guided by a Yakima Indian, Saluskin, in 1855, and the 1857 attempt of Lieutenant August V. Kautz. These were the men who penetrated the wilderness without blazing a trail.

"This book – a collector's item – will be cherished by all who have set foot on the peak and who have been inspired by its distant views." – William O. Douglas