the southern slopes of the Elk mountains, and the region in which we are
now interested was heralded abroad as the long-awaited El Dorado.
Hundreds of men flocked in, striving to be first on the ground. A few of
the earliest comers chose a spot at the base of the sharp, white
mountain so plainly in view north of Crested Butte, and decided that a
town must be placed there to be called Gothic--a name suggested by the
appearance of some cliffs near by. It was done, and the people came to
fill it. To it came all the business of the Brush creek, Rock creek,
Copper creek, Sheep mountain, and Treasure mountain silver and gold
mines, besides those nearer at hand--Schofield, Galena, Elko, Bellevue
and others.
Another somewhat separate mining locality was one that we looked down
upon as we stood at the mouth of the anthracite tunnel and gazed across
the deep gorge which sank between this and the opposite hills, and down
which flowed the gentle current of Slate river. The wall on the other
side rose above the line of timber growth, and one peak showed an
exposed face of brilliant red rock in high contrast to the blue-gray of
the rest. Beneath it lay Redwell basin. At the right frightfully rough
cliffs and forested crags shut in Oh-be joyful gulch, at the head of
which, just out of sight, was Poverty gulch, while Peeler basin showed
its edge. It seems to us that we can perceive through the clear
atmosphere every tree and stone and crevice on the opposite slopes,
though miles away, and can almost hear the prattle of the great
waterfall that shines white in the shady bottom of the gorge; but we can
see no signs whatever that a human being has ever been in all that area.
Nevertheless over all that mountain side there is said to be scarcely an
acre of ground not partially covered by mining claims, and upon some
part of each one of these a discovery-shaft has been sunk. Many of the
fissures thus disclosed are of immense size, carrying veins of
argentiferous galena from three to nine feet in width, assaying on the
surface from forty to one hundred and sixty ounces of silver to the ton.
In some cases ruby silver or gray copper have been reached at forty or
fifty feet in depth, assaying over one thousand ounces. At night the
coal men see the opposite mountains dotted with camp-fires, and the
merchants of Crested Butte will tell you that many a wagon-load and
train of burros is packed with provisions for those apparent solitudes.
"What's in a name!" exclaims the Madame as we are riding homeward, while
talking over these districts and discussing the notable properties.
"Generally nothing," it is replied, "so far as the designations of mines
are concerned, but from the prevalent style of names in the whole
district it would be possible to judge something of the men who settled
it. Here, for instance, one can't help noticing an absence of the rough
gambling titles so common among California mines. The 'Euchre Decks,'
the 'Faro Banks,' the 'Little Brown Jugs,' etc., are few, and in their
place we find the 'Shakespeare,' the 'Iron Duke,' 'Baron De Kalb,'
'Catapult,' and others with similar literary, historical or mythological
meanings. It is evident that no rude typical miner presided at their
christening, but that intelligent, and in many cases highly educated,
men discovered and named them."
Eight miles northwest of Crested Butte are the almost united towns of
Ruby and Irwin, which, in 1879 and '80, had "booms," but now are almost
deserted. The neighborhood abounds in silver, but it has been found that
too many obstacles stand in the way of successfully working the mines,
which are very high, and in a region famous for its deep snows, until
the science of ore-treatment has progressed, and cheaper methods of
operation and transportation have been devised.
Leaving Chum to take the Madame and the train back to Gunnison, I left
Crested Butte on the morning after our ride to the anthracite mine, on
my way to Lake City, discouraging all company.
[Illustration: GATE OF LODORE.]
XXVI
A TRIP TO LAKE CITY.
A wild and broken landscape, spiked with firs,
Roughening the bleak horizon's northern edge.
--WHITTIER.
Lake City is a mining town at the foot of the San Juan mountains thirty
miles south of the railway station of Sapinero (the latter named after a
sub chief among the Utes who was looked upon by the whites as a man of
unusual sagacity). It was at that time reached by a buckboard, carrying
the mail and passengers.
The stage-road led up a long, long hill to the top of the mesa between
the Cochetopa and the Lake Fork of the Gunnison. This much of the way
was in the track of the old southern road to California, which came up
from Santa Fe to Taos, San Luis park, Saguache, and so on over here
along the Cochetopa, striking the Gunnison river just above this point
and continuing on down to the Uncompahgre, where it crossed the Gunnison
to the northern bank and pushed westward to Utah. This was the route
followed by Captain Gunnison in 1853, and it came to be known as the
Salt Lake Wagon Road; and the whole course of the Denver and Rio Grande
railway follows it closely from Grand Junction to the Wasatch mountains.
The road is still occasionally traveled for short distances by light
wagons and by men driving bands of horses, who wish to escape paying the
tolls demanded along the new and improved roads, so that it is in no
danger of becoming obliterated.
From the top of this high plateau, a great picture opens before the eye,
in all directions. Northward the peaks of the Elk range form a long line
of well-separated summits. Northeastward, the vista between nearer hills
is filled with the clustered heights of the Continental Divide in the
neighborhood of the Mount of the Holy Cross. Just below them confused
elevations show where Marshall pass carries its lofty avenue, and to the
southward of that stretches the splendid, snow-trimmed array of the
Sangre de Cristo. They fill beautifully the far eastern horizon, and end
southward in the massive buttresses of Sierra Blanca, of which no more
impressive view can be had than this elevated standpoint affords. As we
advance a few miles other mountains rise into sight straight
ahead,--that is, in the southward. These are the cold and broken
summits of the Sierra San Juan; while isolated from them, and a little
to the right, stands the Saul of their ranks,--Uncompahgre peak, head
and shoulders above all his comrades. Nor is this figure an idle
comparison, for his tenon shaped apex easily suggests it.
Half way to our destination, the crazy buckboard rattles us painfully
down a steep and stony hill into the valley of the Lake Fork of the
Gunnison, where there is room for several ranches whose fields of hay
and oats show a plentiful growth, and whose potato-patches are something
admirable. The best of these is Barnum's, where there is also a store
and a post-office, and where your "humble correspondent," supposing
himself about to lay his head upon a soft bag of oats, nearly dashed his
brains out by hurling it in misplaced confidence against a marble-solid
bag of salt. _Eheu! miserere me!_
When we had wound our way farther up the narrow cañon into which the
valley contracted on the further side of this gateway, there came to
view the precise similitude (but here on a lesser scale) of the massive,
pillared, mitre-crowned cliffs that form the shores of the Columbia
river between Fort Vancouver and The Dalles.
As a mining-town Lake City is not now so active as formerly. It stands
in a little park at the junction of the Lake Fork (of the Gunnison) with
Henson creek,--both typical mountain streams, each wavelet flecked with
foam and sparkling like the back of the trout it hides. Henson creek
became especially famous among prospectors, who found that, however
large an army of miners might flock in there, new veins were always to
be had as the reward of diligent searching. Thus a populous and highly
enterprising town arose, which became the supply point for a wide
mountain region, owing to its accessibility from both north and south;
and though it was over one hundred miles--mountain miles at that!--from
a railway, more than ten million pounds of merchandise, and five million
pounds of mining machinery and supplies were taken in on wagons during
1880, at a cost of over a million dollars for transportation alone. A
very good class of people went to Lake City, too, so that a substantial
and pretty town arose, school-houses and churches were built, and I have
never seen a mining camp where the bookstores and news-stands were so
well furnished and patronized. At the beginning of 1881 about two
thousand people lived in the town itself, not counting the great number
of men in the mountains round about; and three factories for the
treatment of ores were in operation.
Since then, however, Lake City has retreated somewhat; not that the
mines have proved false to the confidence placed in them, but because it
has been shown that until cheaper methods of transportation and more
economic treatment can be devised, the mines cannot be worked to the
same profit which a similar investment in some neighboring districts
will return. This is due to the fact that the ores, of marvelous value
when their mass is considered, are of too low grade, as a rule, to
afford a high margin over the expenses of working. This by no means
condemns the district; it only causes its stores of wealth to be held in
abeyance for a while before their coinage. Many another district, a few
years ago thought equally profitless, has risen to become the scene of
steady dividend-making labor through the perfection of processes. It
will not be long, before, by like means, the reviving of Lake City's
mines will occur, and enable her to catch up with her more fortunate
sisters in the wide circle of the San Juan silver-region.
[Illustration: WINNIE'S GROTTO.]
But when that time has come,--though the Alpine grandeur of the scenery
cannot be lost, the splendid shooting and fishing which now make the
village one of the favored resorts of the west, will have disappeared;
and there are some of us, more sentimental than world-wise, who will
regret the change. Over these rolling uplands, among the aspen groves,
upon the foothills and along the willow-bordered creek deers now
throng, and even an occasional elk and antelope are to be seen. In the
rocky fastnesses the bear and panther find refuge, and every little park
is enlivened by the flitting forms of timid hares and the whirring
escape of the grouse disturbed by our passing. Upon these lofty,
grass-grown plateaus, some cattle already get excellent feeding; and the
time will be short before they are multiplied into the vast herds whose
pasturage will be economised by good management, and for which a market
will be found within a few days drive of the range. Too high and arid
for extensive farming, the opposite, yet inter-dependent, pursuits of
mining and cattle-raising, will ere long bring all this elevated
interior of the state into full utilization. When one wonders how this
railway company is to support itself amid the wilds, this future must be
remembered.
XXVII
IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK CAÑON.
By what furnaces of fire the adamant was melted, and by what wheels of
earthquake it was torn, and by what teeth of glacier and weight of sea
waves it was engraven and finished into perfect form, we may hereafter
endeavor to conjecture.
--JOHN RUSKIN.
It was with eager interest that we despatched a hasty breakfast, and
attached our cars to the early morning express westward bound from
Gunnison. The Grand Cañon of the Gunnison lay just ahead. An open
"observation" car, crowded with sightseers, was hooked on behind us, but
that did not interfere with our favorite rear platform, and thither our
camp-stools were taken.
This river Gunnison has a hard time of it. The streams that finally
unite to make it up, are loath to do so, and it came near not being born
at all. The flat country we see just below the town vouchsafes a few
quiet miles under the cottonwoods, but presently the hills close in, and
then the river must needs gird up its loins for a struggle such as few
other streams in the wide world know. Its life thenceforth is that of a
warrior; and it never lays aside its knightly armor till the very end in
the absorbing flood of the Grand.
Above the rattle of the train, echoing from the rocky highlands that hem
it in, we can hear the roaring of this water as we thunder down its
sinuous course toward Sapinero. Great fragments that have fallen from
the steep banks, where an avalanche of stones lies precariously as
though even the shock of our passing would set them sliding, fret the
stream with continual interruptions and turn its green flood into lines
of yeasty white. These same rocks are admirable fishing-stands, however,
for the trout love the deeply aërated water that swirls about them; and
we see more than one silvery fin snatched from its crystal home to hang
in mute misery upon the angler's switch of forked willow.
"Do you think it's right?" asks the Madame, with a pitiful tone in her
voice.
"No, but it can't be helped; and you'll find some casuistry to meet the
case about dinner-time."
"Casuistry--casuistry?" says Chum reflectively. "Is that a new kind of
sauce?"
Ahead the green hills, marked with horizontal lines, that we suspect to
indicate outcroppings of lava, shut quite across our path. Nevertheless
we can detect a dark depression toward which the track points straight
as an arrow, and we suppose that at that point an entrance exists.
Behind it stood summits so lofty that this barrier did not seem
imposing; but now that a gateway has opened (yet far enough only for our
track to enter by encroaching on the river's highway), we are surprised
at the altitude of the walls which momently rise higher and higher on
each side, as though we were descending a steep incline into the earth.
At what an abyss must the river lie in the middle of the range!
[Illustration: ECHO ROCK.]
The early morning sun streams warm and rich into the cañon, dispelling
the nocturnal chill and making the air delightful beyond expression. We
are hurled along between close-shutting crags that are the type of
solidity, yet seem to waver and topple at their summits as we gaze at
them, cut strongly against the tremulous blue of the sky. Our ears are
assaulted by the crashing of iron against iron and steam shrieking at
the wind, and by the roar and dashing of enraged and baffled water. The
lyric sweetness of the distant hill-picture caught in our backward
glance as we entered the gates of the cañon, is gone; the poetry of this
scene has the epic dignity and the stirring excitement of a war-story
sung on the eve of righteous battle. This is the site and the monument
of a struggle between forces such as we have no capacity to comprehend.
Take a fragment of this shining rock not so large but that you may lift
it, and you will find that studied ingenuity, and the vigorous
application of power that men speak of as enormous, are required to
break it into smaller pieces. Yet here are masses many hundreds of feet
high and wide, that have been riven as I might halve a piece of clay.
You may say it was done thus, or so. No matter, the impression of
stupendous power remains and imprints itself deeply on the mind. Here
for miles we pass between escarpments of rock, a thousand, fifteen
hundred--ay, here and there more than two thousand feet high. This is
not a valley between mountains with sloping sides slowly worn away. Here
are vertical exposures that fit together like mortise and tenon; facing
cliffs that might be shut against one another so tightly that almost no
crevice would remain. To view this mighty chasm thoughtfully, is to
receive a revelation of the immeasurable power pent up in the elements
whose equilibrium alone forms and preserves our globe; and if we call it
"awful," the word conveys not so much a dread of any harm that might
happen to us there, as the vague and timorous appreciation of the
dormant strength under our feet. If the gods we call dynamic can rive a
pathway for a river through twenty miles of solid granite, of what use
is any human safeguard against their anger?
But away with these serious thoughts! The cliffs are founded in unknown
depths it is true, but their heads soar into the sunlight, and break
into forms not too great for us to grasp. Straight from the liquid
emerald frosted with foam which flecks their base--straight as a
plummet's line, and polished like the jasper gates of the Eternal city,
rise these walls of echoing granite to their dizzy battlements. Here and
there a promontory stands as a buttress; here and there a protruding
crag overhangs like a watch-tower on a castle-wall; anon you may fancy a
monstrous profile graven in the angle of some cliff,--a gigantic Hermes
rudely fashioned. In one part of the cañon where the cliffs are highest,
measuring three thousand feet from the railway track to the crown of
their haughty heads, faces of the red granite, hundreds of feet square,
have been left by a split occurring along a natural cleavage-line; and
these are now flat as a mirror and almost as smooth. On the other hand,
you may see places where the rocks rise, not solid, sheer and smooth,
but so crumpled and contorted that the partition-lines, instead of
running at right angles, are curved, twisted and snarled in the most
intricate manner, showing that violent and conflicting agitations of the
rock must have occurred there at a time when the whole mass was heated
to plasticity. In another place, the cliff on the southern side breaks
down and slopes back in a series of interrupted and irregular terraces,
every ledge and cranny having a shapely tree; while not far away another
part of the long escarpment, the rocky layers, turned almost on edge,
have been somewhat bent and broken, so that they lie in imbricated tiers
upon the convex slopes, as if placed there shingle-fashion.
Just opposite, a stream whose source is invisible has etched itself a
notched pathway from the heights above. It plunges down in headlong
haste until there comes a time when there is no longer rock for it to
flow upon, and it flings itself out into the quiet air, to be blown
aside and made rainbows of, to paint upon the circling red cliffs a
wondrous picture in flashing white, and then to fall with soft sibilancy
into the river. The river has no chance to do so brave a thing as this
leap of Chippeta falls from the lofty notch; but seeing a roughened and
broken place ahead where the fallen bowlders have raised a barrier, it
goes at it with a rush and hurls its plumes of foam high overhead, as,
with swirl and tumult, and a swift shooting forth of eddies held far
under its snowy breast, it bursts through and over the obstacle and
sweeps on, conqueror to the last.
In the very center of the cañon, where its bulwarks are most lofty and
precipitous, unbroken cliffs rising two thousand feet without a break,
and shadowed by overhanging cornices,--just here stands the most
striking buttress and pinnacle of them all,--Currecanti Needle. It is a
conical tower standing out somewhat beyond the line of the wall, from
which it is separated (so that from some points of view it looks wholly
isolate,) on one side by a deep gash, and on the other by one of those
narrow side-cañons which in the western part of the gorge occur every
mile or two. These ravines are filled with trees and make a green
setting for this massive monolith of pink stone whose diminishing apex
ends in a leaning spire that seems to trace its march upon the sweeping
clouds.
It was in the recesses of the rift beside Currecanti Needle, says a
tradition which at least is poetic, that the red men used to light the
midnight council-fires around which they discussed their plans of
battle. Though judgment may refuse the fact, fancy likes to revel in
such a scene as that council-fire would have made, deep in the arms of
the rocky defile. How the fitful flashes of the pungent cedar-flame
would have driven back the lurking darkness that pressed upon it from
all sides! How, now and then starting up, the blaze-light would sally
forth and suddenly disclose some captive of the gloom rescued from
oblivion--perhaps a mossy bowlder, an aged juniper, a ghostly cottonwood
stump, or a ledge of sleeping blossoms! How the bright and polished
rocks would be re-reddened and sparkle at their angles under the
glancing light; while the pretty soprano of the stream and the deep bass
of the river's roar sang a duet to the narrow line of stars that could
peep down between the cañon walls! Surely the time and place were
suitable for planning the lurid warfare of a savage race; and as these
untamed men, their muscular limbs and revengeful faces, disclosed
uncertainly, like the creatures of a flitting fantasy, in the red
firelight, enacted with terrifying gestures the fierce future of their
plotting, a spectator might well think himself with fiends,
"On Night's plutonian shore,"
or else discard the whole picture as only the fantastic scenery of some
disordered dream.
Opposite Currecanti Needle and cañon stand some very remarkable rocks,
underneath the greatest of which the train passes. Then there is a long
bridge to cross where the river bends a little; and perhaps the echoing
chasm will be filled with the hoarsely repeated scream of a warning
whistle. And so, past wonder after wonder, Pelion upon Ossa, buried in a
huge rocky prison, yet always in the full sunlight, you suddenly swing
round a sharp corner, leaving the Gunnison to go on through ten miles
more of cañon, and crashing noisily through the zigzag cañon of the
Cimmaron, which is so very narrow and dark it deserves no better name
than crevice, quickly emerge into daylight and a busy station.
Thus I have tried to give the reader some trifling indication of what he
may expect to see during his hour in the heart of the "Black" cañon,
which is not black at all but the sunniest of places. I cannot
understand how the name ever came to be applied to it. No Kobolds
delving in darkness would make it their home; but rather troops of
Oreades, darting down the swift green shutes of water between the
spume-wet bowlders, dancing in the creamy eddies, struggling hand over
hand up the lace ladders of Chippeta Falls, to tumble headlong down
again, making the prismatic foam resound with the soft tinkling of their
merry laughter. All the Sprites of the cañon are beings of brightness
and joy. The place is full of gayety.
This sense of color and light is perhaps the strongest impression that
remains. Though it is quite as deep and precipitous as the Royal gorge
it is not so gloomy and frowning; though the cataracts are greater than
those at Toltec, they are not so fear-inspiring. In place of dark and
impenetrable walls, here are varied façades of lofty and majestic
design, yet each unlike its neighbor and all of the most brilliant hue.
The cliffs are architectural, suggestive of human kinship and more than
marvelous--they are interesting.
Then there is the brilliant and resistless river. At Toltec it is only a
murmuring cataract; in the Royal gorge a stream you may often leap
across; the Rio de Las Animas is deep and quiet. But here rushes along
its gigantic flume a great volume of hurried water, rolled over and over
in headlong haste, hurled against solid abutments to recoil in showers
of spray or to sheer off in sliding masses of liquid emerald. Now some
quiet nook gives momentary rest. The water is still and deep. Small
rafts of seedy foam swing slowly around the edges, tardy to dissolve.
The rippled sand can be seen in wavy lines far underneath like the
markings on a duck's breast. The surplus water curves like bent glass
over the dam that rims the pool on its lower side, and beyond is a
whirlpool of foam and the hissing tumult of shattered waves amid which
rise the sharp crests of crimson bowlders flounced with snowy circles of
foam.
[Illustration: GUNNISON'S BUTTE.]
Alternating with the vast pillars and the slick faces of red rock are
the nooks and ravines where trees grow, flowers bloom and the eye can
get a glimpse of a triangle of violet sky; while sometimes a silken
skein of white water can be traced down the deepest recesses of the
glen, and the gleam of swallow's wings flitting in colonies about their
circular adobes bracketed against the wall.