[wamtngal]

I was on the North Cascades National Park's Facebook page earlier and noticed that they have been posting historical pics of the North Cascades.

One pic caught my attention. It said it was from the 1916 Mary Roberts Rinehart expedition through the North Cascades. My interest was piqued when I saw a woman's name associated with an expedition in the early 20th century -- not a common thing.

The photo caption on NCNP's Facebook page mentioned that the expedition had been documented, first in Cosmopolitan and later in a book titled Tenting To-Night. I wanted to see if I could find any info on the book and Googled it.

Lo and behold, I found the entire book in PDF.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's expedition in the North Cascades starts on page 100.

Thought other might find interest in reading it like I have.

[Kim Brown]

Wow! Thanks for posting. I bet the Dan Devore in the book is the one the peak is named after...? I haven't finished reading it; stopped at the Lyman Lakes chapter.

The writing style is sorta typical of the genre, I think....they wrote of Nature as terrible and fearsome; I guess because the hardships they had of it. It was a lot more like conquering than what we do out there nowadays.....

--------------
"Like most of your posts, you are so one sided you should have been a halibut." Bird Dog, NWHiker's Welcoming Committee

[Yana]

Thanks, indeed! I'm only a few pages in, but already enjoying it immensely.

Some of my favorites, in the part where she introduces the cast of characters:

[wamtngal]

Glad you two are enjoying it. So far I've made it just past their Lyman Lakes adventure. They're heading down Agnes Creek.

Yana -- I loved both of those descriptions. She is a pretty entertaining writer - not what I was expecting from an expedition memoir.

I was impressed by the guy (forgetting his name and the PDF isn't on this computer) who was building all of these trails and campsites along the way. I also enjoyed thinking about their struggle up to Cloudy Pass/Peak area (and over toward Chiwawa) knowing how relatively easy it is nowadays...and to think I've walked some of the places they did almost a century ago -- so cool.

[mike]

background:

At one time the highest paid writer in America. Her novel The Door was the first mystery in which "the butler did it."

[contour5]

"Silent Lawrie" was David Denny's grandson- Lawrence Denny Lindsley- the vandal who carved his name on the rock up on Chikamin Ridge in 1899.

He spent about a dozen years in isolation in the wilds of Chelan after his wife and daughters all died in some sort of horrible plague shortly after 1900.

During that time he worked for the railroads as a photographer, scouting locations for trips and guiding railroad tourist pack-train expeditions.

Mary Roberts Rinehart's book was part of the same promotional effort funded by the railroads. Despite being promotional boilerplate, Tenting To-Night is a pretty good read. An amazing glimpse at a vanished world. Mountain travel was an order of magnitude more difficult before the modern trail system was developed. They used horses, but Snoqualmie Pass was a three day ride from Seattle...