Covering the mountain area between the Columbia and Fraser rivers, this volume brings together the experiences of a wide range of explorers, from the Native Americans who walked the first mountain trails to the Forest Service employees who traveled and mapped the land extensively. In between there were traders and trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company; men searching for railroad passes, wagon routes, or gold; and also a hardy group of geologists and topographers. All these groups were in pursuit of an increased knowledge of the terrain that would allow them to map (and perhaps profit from) the beautiful and mysterious northern Cascades. The author has made extensive use of the journals, letters, and official reports of both the famous and the less well known explorers of these mountains. Beckey has given us not only the records of where they traveled and what they found, but also their expressions of the wonder, hardships, camaraderie, disappointments, and sheer exhilaration of discovery in an unknown wilderness. --From publisher's description.