Oh where, oh where have our Snowshoe Rabbits gone? Last winter the woods were full of their tracks -- now they are comparatively scarce. These rabbits have been on the decline in this section of the Park for several seasons. No doubt the predators have cleaned them out. Raccoons still make their regular visits to many of the homes here -- soon learning where there is a liklihood of a regular handout. Bear, which remained out of hibernation this fall later than usual, now seem to be permanently denned up. The exceptionally late and dry fall kept one awake until nearly Christmas.

The latest addition to the Museum is a photo of Capt. Eugene Ricksacker -- received from Asahel Curtis of Seattle. Capt. Ricksacker was the engineer in charge of the original survey and construction of the Nisqually Road to Paradise Valley -- the first modern road in the Park and the first road in the United States to be constructed to a glacier. Ricksacker Point, on this road, commemorates his memory. Like the "little drops of water and little grains of sand that make the ocean and the pleasant land" we are gradually building up a Museum that we will be proud of some day. A winter hike to Paradise Valley the other day was full of interest and the trail was exceptionally beautiful. Some of last summer's temporary Rangers paid us a visit recently -- Harold Lancour, Lewis Buckmaster, Chet Biesen and "Speed" McClellan. There is about a foot of snow at Longmire and about seven feet at Paradise -- far less than last year at this time.

In case you are interested in the cover it attempts to picture a sprig of Lodgepole Pine. There is a little grove of these trees in the meadow about Longmire Springs; all are about the same age. Len Longmire says there werent any trees in that meadow originally and surmises that the seeds were brought in from the original Longmire ranch at Yelm in hay. As they are about the same age and as Lodgepole Pine is found (on this side of "The Mountain") only at this point his theory seems quite plausible. Lodgepole Pine is common in the White River section, on the other side of "The Mountain" however.