Most people who travel look only at what they are directed to look at. Great is the power of the guidebook maker, however ignorant. - John Muir

"Once arrived in the valley, it is important to know what to do with one's self. I would advise sitting from morning till night under some willow bush on the riverbank where there is a wide view. This will be "doing the valley" far more effectively than riding along trails in constant motion from point to point. Sunlight streaming over the walls and falling upon the river and silvery foliage of the groves; the varied rush and boom of the falls; the slipping of the crystal river; birds, flowers, and blue, alpine sky, are then seen most fully and impressively, without the blurring distractions of guiding, riding, and scrambling. Few, however, will believe this, and anxious inquiries will always be made for ponies, points, and guides."

Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.

They seemed to be losing heart with every howl of the storm, and fearing that they might fail me now that I was in the midst of so grand a congregation of glaciers, which possibly I might not see again, I made haste to reassure them, telling them that for ten years I had wandered alone among mountains and storms, and that good luck always followed me; that with me, therefore, they need fear nothing; that the storm would soon cease, and the sun would shine; and that Heaven cared for us, and guided us all the time, whether we knew it or not: but that only brave men had a right to look for Heaven's care, therefore all childish fear must be put away.