Marshall Pass is entered almost imperceptibly from Poncha Pass, and
the whole wonderful ascent might very readily be imagined as one and
the same. The summit is almost eleven thousand feet above the sea, and
the tortuous method by which the daring engineers of the Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad have achieved this summit can best be understood by a
glance at the cut illustrating the alignment of the track, shown on
another page. As the train progresses up the steep the view becomes
less obstructed by mountain sides and the eye roams over miles of
cone-shaped summits. The timberless tops of towering ranges show him
that he is among the heights and in a region familiar with the clouds.
Then he beholds, stretching away to the left, the most perfect of all,
the Sierras. The sunlight falls with a white, transfiguring radiance
upon the snow-crowned spires of the Sangre de Cristo range. Their sharp
and dazzling pyramids, which near at hand are clearly defined, extend
to the southward until cloud and sky and snowy peak commingle and form
a vague and bewildering vision. To the right towers the fire-scarred
front of old Ouray, grand, solitary and forbidding. Ouray holds the
pass, standing sentinel at the rocky gateway to the fertile Gunnison.
Slowly the steeps are conquered, until at last the train halts upon
the summit of the continental divide which separates the waters of the
Atlantic and Pacific. The traveler looks down upon four lines of road,
terrace beyond terrace, the last so far below as to be quite indistinct
to view. Wonder at the triumphs of engineering skill is strangely
mingled with the feelings of awe and admiration at the stupendous
grandeur of the scene.
[Illustration: ANIMAS CAÑON AND NEEDLE MOUNTAIN.]