Prairie born;
Once his feet touch the slope of Western mountain
The level road they ever more shall spurn.
If once he drink from snow-pure crystal fountain
His thirst shall, ever more consuming, burn
With deepened draughts from common stream.
Once his eye catch glimpse of more substantial glory
Than prairie horizon high piled with clouded foam
His quickened yearning shall inspire old story
Of unbounded, deathless realms beyond the sunset--Home!
There were two of us, a prairie born tenderfoot in the person of a
sixteen-year-old college sophomore and the writer. After months of
anticipation and planning we hurried away at the close of the college
term, leaving the prairies of Iowa to spend a short vacation in the
mountains; and we arrived in Denver on a perfect, cloudless morning in
June.
Since early daylight we had kept an eager watch to westward across
the even plains to catch a first glimpse of the great Front Range of
the Rocky Mountains with its covering of summer snow, and after making
some purchases of camp supplies we climbed to Capitol Hill in Denver
to see the foothills soften to purple and the snow fields melt to
liquid gold as the crystal day turned to crimson glory with the
setting of the sun.
[Illustration: Sunset Washes]
"This is the land that the sunset washes,
Those are the Banks of the Yellow Sea
Where it arose, and whither it rushes
This is the western mystery."
Late in the evening we took the train for Loveland from which place we
were to start on a walking trip to Laramie, up in Wyoming.
In Loveland we purchased a pony and a pack-saddle. The pony had never
been broken to the saddle, and inasmuch as the art of packing has
always to be learned anew when one has not practiced it for several
years, both of us were, in some respects, as green as the pony, and
naturally somewhat nervous when we started from Loveland. The pony
served us well however and at the worst only gave us a name for the
Bucking Horse Pass when we crossed the range of the Medicine Bow
Mountains from the waters of the Grand River to those of the North
Platte.
From Loveland we reached Sprague's Ranch in Estes Park, thirty-five
miles away, in two days of easy travel over a good stage road,
encountering a snow squall in the high foothills which left us cold
and wet at sundown of the first day. In Estes Park we stayed three
days, fishing, running up to timber line as preliminary exercise, and
writing letters. The writer had spent two previous summers in Estes
Park near Sprague's Ranch in company with friends from the University
of Kansas.
CAMP ACCLIMATIZATION
June 21st.
_My dear little Friend:_--
D. and I reached this place day before yesterday. I saw Fred Sprague
yesterday. He had already learned of our presence in the Park, having
seen our characteristic hob-nail tracks, and, as his mother tells me,
he remarked upon seeing them that "God's people had come," meaning the
Kansas boys with whom he became acquainted in '86 and '89.
We have passed thousands of flowers since leaving Loveland, white
poppies, cactus, blue bells, columbine and others more than I can
tell. The blue bells are of the same kind that you and I found near
Bloomington several weeks ago. It would be very nice if you and I
could make some of our Saturday excursions in this country.
I wish I could tell you more of our trip. Of course it is scarcely
begun as yet, but I know pretty well what it will be; hard, for one
thing, and lonesome, but strangely fascinating. We are beginning
already to have that attitude towards nature which I imagine Indians
have, namely, the desire to get something to eat out of everything we
see. [M. had written her brother D. at Moraine post office of the pies
and cakes they were making at home.] This is by no means greediness,
for a measured appetite is essentially incompatible with the conditions
of Indian life. In fact the only wild animals which are not gourmands
on occasion are those which eat grass. Of course, we are at best only
Agency Indians, but we shall soon be off our reservation.
Few people realize the utter desolation of many parts of the Rocky
Mountains; and often on my mountain trips, hungry and foot-sore, my
fancy has turned to what my friend 'Gric[H] has told me of the utterly
desolate Funeral Mountains that border Death Valley in southern
California, and of the infinite sunshine there. What would _you_
think, my little friend, even now amid the comforts and joys of home,
if you could hear a trustworthy account of an actual trip over those
dreadful Mountains and into that awful Valley?
I hope that the map with the accompanying description will help you to
a knowledge of the geography and geology of this country. I send kind
regards to your father and mother.
Your friend, F.
Starting from Estes Park for the Grand River country we stopped over
night at _Camp Desolation_ in Windy Gulch, an enormous amphitheater
rising above timber line on the north, east, and west, and opening to
the south into Big Thompson Canyon. The mouth of the Gulch is dammed
by the lateral moraine of an ancient Thompson glacier and behind this
dam is a level, marshy stretch with a few green spruce and thickets
of aspen, black alder and mountain willow. Near timber line also is
a scattered fringe of green with dots of white. All the rest is a
desolate stretch of burned timber.
Trailing to the head of Windy Gulch in the morning we gained the
summit of Thompson Ridge which we followed in a northwesterly
direction for about twelve miles; then we circled around the head of
Big Thompson river and went down to Camp at the head of the Cache la
Poudre river, precisely on the Continental Divide in Milner Pass about
two hundred feet below timber line with Specimen Mountain immediately
to the north of us.
SPECIMEN MOUNTAIN CAMP,
June 24th.
_My Dear B:_--
D. and I are going to run down to Grand Lake settlement to-morrow for
bacon and flour so I write this today. I have been in camp all morning
cooking and mending while D. has been looking for sheep up in the
crater of Specimen Mountain. He saw two and shot without effect.
Specimen Mountain is an extinct volcano and sheep come to the crater
to lick. I have seen as many as a hundred and fifty sheep there at
different times during the four trips that I have made to this region,
but I have hunted them only one day (the first) of the twenty-five
that I have spent in this camp--without success, of course.
Flowers in profusion are found at these altitudes already where the
shrinking snow drifts have exposed the ground to the warm June sun,
but under the drifts it is yet the dead of winter. As the season
advances the snow recedes, and each newly uncovered strip of ground
passes with exuberant haste through a cycle of spring.
We came over from Estes Park yesterday and the day before. At one
point I carried the horse's pack about a quarter of a mile on account
of steepness of trail and depth of snow, leaving the pony under D.'s
guidance to wallow through as best she could. We shall, no doubt, have
some hard work getting out of the Grand River valley to the north over
the Medicine Bow but we intend to keep at it. We are, of course, likely
to get cold and wet, tired and hungry. In fact, I am neither very dry
nor very warm now as I write, for it is half snowing and half raining;
nor hungry (?) for I have just eaten three slices of bacon, half a corn
cake eight inches in diameter and an inch thick, with bacon gravy made
with flour and water, and nearly a quart of strong coffee of syrupy
sweetness. I do wish D. had killed that sheep this morning! We hope to
get some trout to-morrow out of Grand River, but to see the sheets of
water which are being shed off the range from rain and melting snow
makes one feel uncertain of the trout fishing. I will close for this
time and put this into my knapsack. To-morrow D. and I will get our
"walkins" on bright and early, and pack it to Grand Lake. This is a
tough country beyond imagination.
Yours sincerely, F.
When trailing above timber line on our way to Specimen Mountain and
subsequently we were on snow much of the time; below timber line at
high altitudes we contended about equally with snow and fallen timber;
and at middle altitudes where the timber is heavy and where fires have
been frequent and disastrous the fallen timber alone is quite enough
to make travel troublesome. Mud and water, fallen and falling,
we encountered everywhere, but without much concern. The greatest
vexation to the amateur traveler in the Rockies is to slip off a log
in trying to cross a stream, and thus get wet all over, when if one
had been reasonable, one might have been wet only to the middle.
An awkward comrade of '89 did this so many times that it became a
standing joke; but 'Gric,{7} as we called him, that is to say
_Agricola,_ after his father "Farmer" Funston of Kansas, developed grit
enough to take him through Death Valley in southern California, to take
him, all alone, 1,600 miles down the Yukon River in an open boat and
across 200 miles of unexplored country during the winter night to the
shores of the Arctic Ocean, to take him into the Cuban army, where he
received three serious wounds, and finally to take him through the
Philippines with our Volunteer Army where he captured Aguinaldo.
From _Specimen Mountain Camp_ in Milner Pass we made our way to Grand
River over an extremely difficult trail, nearly breaking our pony's
leg in the fallen timber, and, finding it impossible to reach Grand
Lake by the river trail without wetting our pack, we went into
(_Mosquito_) camp and did our week's washing. The next day we left our
pony, and made a flying round trip of thirty miles to the settlement.
The next morning, hoping to escape the mosquitoes, we moved camp
several miles up stream and in the afternoon we climbed to the summit
of one of the high spurs of a nameless[J] peak in the range of the
Medicine Bow. We got back to camp late in the evening in a sharp rain,
which continued all night.
The next morning promised fair weather, and after some hesitation, we
packed up for the trip over to North Park. Starting at eight o'clock
we reached the deserted mining camp, Lulu, at eleven, having forded
Grand River seven times, the water of it ice cold and swift as an arrow.
We then began to climb the range, the summit of which we reached at
three o'clock at the pass of the Bucking Horse far above timber line. At
four o'clock we began the descent into the valley of the Michigan fork
of the North Platte. The rain, until now fitful, became steady and we,
determined to reach a good camping place, kept our pony at a half-trot
until eight o'clock, when we found a deserted cabin. We were too
impatiently hungry to make biscuit, which we ordinarily baked in the
frying pan before cooking our bacon, so we made our supper of graham mush,
bacon, bacon gravy and coffee. Next morning we found to our dismay that
our baking powder had been left at the Bucking Horse--and no wonder, for
our pack had been strewn for a quarter of a mile along the trail--so
we were reduced to mush again for breakfast.
GOULD'S RANCH,
July 7th.
_My Dear B:_
We have just returned from a week's hunt in the Medicine Bow Mountains
east of here. We saw elk, killed a deer, and spent the Fourth of July on
a prominent but nameless peak from which we got a splendid view.
* * * * *
After breakfast at Camp _Mush,_ Mr. E.B. Gould, a neighboring cattle
rancher who has no cattle, was attracted by the smoke of our campfire,
and coming up to see us, he invited us to his shanty to eat venison.
We went. We have now been with him a week and we are starting on our
second carcass.
Gould lives by hunting and trapping, and by odd work in the Park
during the haying season. He came to this country years ago with a
hunting party and has been hunting ever since. Several years ago
he took up a claim in the extreme southeastern corner of North Park
conveniently near to hunting grounds in the Medicine Bow. He gave
up his claim, for good, a year ago, and made an overland trip to New
Mexico. That did not satisfy him either, so now he is back in his old
shanty again. He thinks we are the toughest "tender-foots" he ever
saw. He approves of us, there is no doubt about that, and he has
pulled up his stakes to travel with us just for the pleasure of our
company! He takes great interest in D.'s knowledge of bugs, and D. and
he are both real hunters each according to his experience. Before we
fell in with Gould I could persuade D. to wanton exertion in the way
of mountain climbing but now I am in the minority, but the hunters
propose, with a flourish, the scaling of every peak that comes in sight.
I had a spell of mountain fever just before the Fourth and Gould dosed
me with sage brush tea, the vilest concoction I ever had to take.
Gould is not accustomed to walk except when actually hunting, so he
has a riding horse, and a trusty old pack animal whose minimum name
is "G---- d---- you Jack," and whose maximum name (and load) is
indeterminate. Gould is going with us to spend a week in the Range
of the Rabbit's Ear, far to the west across North Park. He has an old
wagon which, if it holds together, will save D. and me some tedious
steps across the desert, for indeed this "park" is a desert. We shall
pass through Walden, the metropolis and supply station of the Park.
Yours, F.