[size=10pt]Mazamas mountaineering records come out in the wash[/size]
Climbing - A trove of lost Northwest mountaineering history emerges from a mountain of laundry
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
MARK LARABEE
Two members of Portland's Mazamas mountain climbing club have undertaken a different kind of adventure in recent days, one of time travel.
They recovered a collection of the club's historic documents from the late 1800s that had been missing since the 1970s, providing original information on early climbs on Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens, as well as first-hand accounts of the discovery of Crater Lake.
Stashed in a box in the laundry room of a Portland home was the Mount Hood summit register for 1891-95 and the Mount St. Helens summit register from 1898-1908. The Mount Hood register, placed in a copper can on the summit in 1891 by five employees of The Oregonian's composing room, includes signatures of many well-known 19th century Oregonians, including J.K Gill, founder of the J.K. Gill Co., and Raymond G. Jubitz, founder of Jubitz Trucking Co.
A volume of Mazamas minutes covering meetings from March 1894 to December 1898 sheds light on the transformation of the Oregon Alpine Club into the Mazamas, which was officially formed on Mount Hood's summit in 1894.
Also found were letters from 1897 by J.W. Hillman and Chauncey Nye -- members of the first two European parties to see Crater Lake. In one letter, Hillman describes stumbling on the lake while searching for gold in 1853. He called the find "accidental" as he was returning from prospecting "hungry, tired and worn-out."
"For us, this is what we're calling the Holy Grail," said Peggie Schwarz, Mazamas executive director. "It's evidence of the beginning of the organization, the founding members who were climbing and the early history of Mount Hood."
Jeff Thomas, Mazamas photo archivist, and Vera Dafoe, club curator, said they were contacted by a Portland man who said he found the documents at his home. The papers are in incredible condition and very legible.
Thomas and Dafoe will not say who turned the papers over in order to protect the man's privacy and they are vague as to how the documents ended up in his laundry room.
But Dafoe said the papers went missing before the club did a good job of archiving. They were simply kept on a shelf in the clubhouse where members had easy access, she said.
"At some point he saw them and decided it was time to return them," Dafoe said. "We're not asking questions. We're just happy to get it back."
Thomas, who is working on a book about the history of Oregon climbing, said the papers will be valuable to his research. For example, he learned from the Mount Hood summit register that William Gladstone Steel, one of the Mazamas founding members, also was a mountain climbing guide.
"This is a census that was taken of the top of Mount Hood for a number of years," he said. "There's a lot of history here."
Eventually the originals will be stored and copies will be made available to the public.
Mark Larabee: 503-294-7664; marklarabee@news.oregonian.com
