"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow;
And,
driving o'er the fields, seems nowhere to alight;
The whited air
hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven
And veils the
farm-house at the gardens end." Emerson.
And when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world
unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening
wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no
earth below,-
A universe of sky and
snow! Whittier.
There was no question as to whether or not we would have a
White-Christmas on Rainier this season. A snowstorm late in December
which brought more than two feet of fleecy whiteness to Longmire Springs
and piled snow six feet deep in the upper valleys, took care of that for
us. Splendid weather with a temperature only a little below freezing
has given us an ideal Christmas season and opened the winter hotel
season with a bang. Trees are weighted down with snows and forest
trails are fairylands of beauty. Skiing and tobogganing are the
favorite sports about Longmire and many sturdy hikers are "hitting the
trail" for the high country. The winter lodge at Paradise Valley is
alive with the gaiety and color and the hillsides resound with the
shouts of the revelers without. King Boreas is holding court on Mount
Rainier and his loyal subjects have come from far and near to do him
homage.
