southern group, culminating in Colorado. So stupendous is this heaping
together of granitic masses that in Colorado alone are found forty-two
of the fifty-five named peaks in the United States which attain the
altitude of fourteen thousand feet. Of the others, twelve are in the
Sierra of California, and one, Mount Rainier, in Washington. Mount
Elbert, in Colorado, our second highest peak, rises within eighty-two
feet of the height of California's Mount Whitney, our first in rank;
Colorado's Mount Massive attains an altitude only four feet less than
Washington's Mount Rainier, which ranks third. In point of mass, one
seventh of Colorado rises above ten thousand feet of altitude. The state
contains three hundred and fifty peaks above eleven thousand feet of
altitude, two hundred and twenty peaks above twelve thousand feet, and a
hundred and fifty peaks above thirteen thousand feet; besides the
forty-two named peaks which exceed fourteen thousand feet, there are at
least three others which are unnamed.
Geologists call the Rockies young, by which they mean anything, say,
from five to twenty million years. They are more or less contemporary
with the Sierra. Like the Sierra, the mountains we see to-day are not
the first; several times their ranges have uplifted upon wrecks of
former ranges, which had yielded to the assaults of frost and rain.
Before they first appeared, parts of the Eastern Appalachians had
paralleled our eastern sea coast for many million years. The Age of
Mammals had well dawned before they became a feature in a landscape
which previously had been a mid-continental sea.
II
The Front Range, carrying the continental divide, is a gnarled and
jagged rampart of snow-splashed granite facing the eastern plains, from
which its grim summits may be seen for many miles. Standing out before
it like captains in front of gray ranks at parade rise three conspicuous
mountains, Longs Peak, fifty miles northwest of Denver, Mount Evans,
west of Denver, and Pikes Peak, seventy miles to the south. Longs Peak
is directly connected with the continental divide by a series of jagged
cliffs. Mount Evans is farther away. Pikes Peak stands sentinel-like
seventy-five miles east of the range, a gigantic monadnock, remainder
and reminder of a former range long ages worn away.
Though many massive mountains of greater altitude lie farther west, the
Front Range for many reasons is representative of the Rockies' noblest.
To represent them fully, the national park should include the three
sentinel peaks and their neighborhoods, and it is earnestly hoped that
the day will come when Congress will recognize this need. At this
writing only the section of greatest variety and magnificence, the
nearly four hundred square miles of which Longs Peak is the climax, has
been thus entitled. In fact, even this was unfortunately curtailed in
the making, the straight southern boundary having been arbitrarily drawn
through the range at a point of sublimity, throwing out of the park the
St. Vrain Glaciers which form one of the region's wildest and noblest
spectacles, and Arapaho Peak and its glaciers which in several respects
constitute a climax in Rocky Mountain scenery.
Thus carelessly cropped, despoiled of the completeness which Nature
meant it to possess, nevertheless the Rocky Mountain National Park is a
reservation of distinguished charm and beauty. It straddles the
continental divide, which bisects it lengthwise, north and south. The
western slopes rise gently to the divide; at the divide, the eastern
front drops in a precipice several thousand feet deep, out of which
frosts, rains, glaciers and streams have gouged gigantic gulfs and
granite-bound vales and canyons, whose intervening cliffs are
battlemented walls and monoliths.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Wiswall Brothers_
ESTES PARK PLATEAU, LOOKING EAST
Showing the village and the foothills, which are remnants of a former
great range, now almost washed away by erosion; Rocky Mountain National
Park]
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Wiswall Brothers_
FRONT RANGE OF THE ROCKIES FROM BIERSTADT LAKE
From right to left: Flattop Mountain, Tyndall Glacier, Hallett Peak,
Otis Peak, Andrews Glacier]
As if these features were not enough to differentiate this national
park from any other, Nature has provided still another element of
popularity and distinction. East of this splendid rampart spreads a
broad area of rolling plateau, carpeted with wild flowers, edged and
dotted with luxuriant groves of pine, spruce, fir, and aspen, and
diversified with hills and craggy mountains, carved rock walls, long
forest-grown moraines and picturesque ravines; a stream-watered,
lake-dotted summer and winter pleasure paradise of great size, bounded
on the north and west by snow-spattered monsters, and on the east and
south by craggy wooded foothills, only less in size, and no less in
beauty than the leviathans of the main range. Here is summer living room
enough for several hundred thousand sojourners from whose comfortable
camps and hotels the wild heart of the Rockies may be visited afoot or
on horseback between early breakfast and late supper at home.
This plateau has been known to summer visitors for many years under the
titles of several settlements; Moraine Park, Horseshoe Park, and Longs
Peak, each had its hotels long before the national park was created;
Estes Park and Allen's Park on the east side, and Grand Lake on the west
side lie just outside the park boundaries, purposely excluded because of
their considerable areas of privately owned land. Estes Park, the
principal village and the distributing centre of all incoming routes
from the east, is the Eastern Gateway; Grand Lake is the Western
Gateway.
And still there is another distinction, one which will probably always
hold for Rocky Mountain its present great lead in popularity. That is
its position nearer to the middle of the country than other great
national parks, and its accessibility from large centres of population.
Denver, which claims with some justice the title of Gateway to the
National Parks, meaning of course the eastern gateway to the western
parks, is within thirty hours by rail from Chicago and St. Louis,
through one or other of which most travellers from the east find it
convenient to reach the west. It is similarly conveniently located for
touring motorists, with whom all the national parks are becoming ever
more popular. From Denver several railroads lead to east-side towns,
from which the park is reached by motor stages through the foothills,
and a motor stage line runs directly from Denver to Estes Park,
paralleling the range. The west side is reached through Granby.
III
Entry to the park by any route is dramatic. If the visitor comes the
all-motor way through Ward he picks up the range at Arapaho Peak, and
follows it closely for miles. If he comes by any of the rail routes, his
motor stage emerges from the foothills upon a sudden spectacle of
magnificence--the snowy range, its highest summits crowned with cloud,
looming upon the horizon across the peaceful plateau. By any route the
appearance of the range begins a panorama of ever-changing beauty and
inspiration, whose progress will outlive many a summer's stay.
Having settled himself in one of the hotels or camps of the east-side
plateau, the visitor faces the choice between two practical ways of
enjoying himself. He may, as the majority seem to prefer, spend his
weeks in the simple recreations familiar in our eastern hill and country
resorts; he may motor a little, walk a little, fish a little in the Big
Thompson and its tributaries, read and botanize a little in the meadows
and groves, golf a little on the excellent courses, climb a little on
the lesser mountains, and dance or play bridge in hotel parlors at
night. Or else he may avail himself of the extraordinary opportunity
which Nature offers him in the mountains which spring from his
comfortable plateau, the opportunity of entering into Nature's very
workshop and of studying, with her for his teacher, the inner secrets
and the mighty examples of creation.
In all our national parks I have wondered at the contentment of the
multitude with the less when the greater, and such a greater, was there
for the taking. But I ceased to criticize the so-called popular point of
view when I realized that its principal cause was ignorance of the
wealth within grasp rather than deliberate choice of the more
commonplace; instead, I write this book, hoping that it may help the
cause of the greater pleasure. Especially is the Rocky Mountain National
Park the land of opportunity because of its accessibility, and of the
ease with which its inmost sanctuaries may be entered, examined, and
appreciated. The story is disclosed at every step. In fact the
revelation begins in the foothills on the way in from the railroad, for
the red iron-stained cliffs seen upon their eastern edges are remainders
of former Rocky Mountains which disappeared by erosion millions of years
ago. The foothills themselves are remnants of mountains which once were
much loftier than now, and the picturesque canyon of the Big Thompson,
through which it may have been your good fortune to enter the park, is
the stream-cut outlet of a lake or group of lakes which once covered
much of the national park plateau.
Summer life on the plateau is as effective as a tonic. The altitude
varies from seven to nine thousand feet; Rocky Mountain's valley bottoms
are higher than the summits of many peaks of celebrity elsewhere. On
every hand stretch miles of tumbled meadows and craggy cliffs. Many are
the excellent roads, upon which cluster, at intervals of miles, groups
of hotels and camps. Here one may choose his own fashion of living, for
these hostelries range from the most formal and luxurious hotel to the
simplest collection of tents or log cabins around a central log dining
structure. Some of these camps are picturesque, the growth of years from
the original log hut. Some are equipped with modern comforts; others are
as primitive as their beginnings. All the larger resorts have stables of
riding horses, for riding is the fashion even with those who do not
venture into the mountains.
Or, one may camp out in the good old-fashioned way, and fry his own
morning bacon over his fire of sticks.
Wherever one lives, however one lives, in this broad tableland, he is
under the spell of the range. The call of the mountains is ever present.
Riding, walking, motoring, fishing, golfing, sitting under the trees
with a book, continually he lifts his eyes to their calm heights.
Unconsciously he throws them the first morning glance. Instinctively he
gazes long upon their gleaming moonlit summits before turning in at
night. In time they possess his spirit. They calm him, exalt him,
ennoble him. Unconsciously he comes to know them in all their myriad
moods. Cold and stern before sunrise, brilliant and vivid in
mid-morning, soft and restful toward evening, gorgeously colored at
sunset, angry, at times terrifying, in storm, their fascination never
weakens, their beauty changes but it does not lessen.
Mountains of the height of these live in constant communion with the
sky. Mummy Mountain in the north and Longs Peak in the south continually
gather handfuls of fleecy cloud. A dozen times a day a mist appears in
the blue, as if entangled while passing the towering summit. A few
moments later it is a tiny cloud; then, while you watch, it thickens and
spreads and hides the peak. Ten minutes later, perhaps, it dissipates as
rapidly as it gathered, leaving the granite photographed against the
blue. Or it may broaden and settle till it covers a vast acreage of sky
and drops a brief shower in near-by valleys, while meadows half a mile
away are steeped in sunshine. Then, in a twinkling, all is clear again.
Sometimes, when the clearing comes, the summit is white with snow. And
sometimes, standing upon a high peak in a blaze of sunshine from a
cleared sky, one may look down for a few moments upon the top of one of
these settled clouds, knowing that it is sprinkling the hidden valley.
The charm of the mountains from below may satisfy many, but sooner or
later temptation is sure to beset. The desire comes to see close up
those monsters of mystery. Many, including most women, ignorant of
rewards, refuse to venture because they fear hardship. "I can never
climb mountains in this rarefied air," pleads one, and in most cases
this is true; it is important that persons unused to the higher
altitudes be temperate and discreet. But the lungs and muscles of a
well-trained mountain horse are always obtainable, and the least
practice will teach the unaccustomed rider that all he has to do is to
sit his saddle limply and leave everything else to the horse. It is my
proud boast that I can climb any mountain, no matter how high and
difficult, up which my horse can carry me.
And so, at last and inevitably, we ascend into the mountains.
IV
The mountains within the park fall naturally in two groupings. The Front
Range cuts the southern boundary midway and runs north to Longs Peak,
where it swings westerly and carries the continental divide out of the
park at its northwestern corner. The Mummy Range occupies the park's
entire north end. The two are joined by a ridge 11,500 feet in altitude,
over which the Fall River Road is building to connect the east and the
west sides of the park.
The lesser of these two, the Mummy Range, is a mountain group of
distinguished beauty. Its climax is an arc of gray monsters, Ypsilon
Mountain, 13,507 feet, Mount Fairchild, 13,502 feet, Hagues Peak, 13,562
feet, and Mount Dunraven, 12,326 feet; these gather around Mummy
Mountain with its 13,413 feet. A noble company, indeed, herded in close
comradeship, the centre of many square miles of summits scarcely less.
Ypsilon's big Greek letter, outlined in perpetual snow, is one of the
famous landmarks of the northern end. Hagues Peak supports Hallett
Glacier, the most interesting in the park. Dunraven, aloof and of
slenderer outline, offers marked contrast to the enormous sprawling bulk
of Mummy, always portentous, often capped with clouds. The range is
split by many fine canyons and dotted with glacial lakes, an undeveloped
wilderness designed by kindly nature for summer exploration.
But it is the Front Range, the snowy pinnacled rampart, which commands
profoundest attention.
From Specimen Mountain in the far northwest, a spill of lava, now the
haunt of mountain sheep, the continental divide southward piles climax
upon climax. Following it at an elevation well exceeding twelve thousand
feet, the hardy, venturesome climber looks westward down a slope of bald
granite, thickly strewn with boulders; eastward he gazes into a
succession of gigantic gorges dropping upon the east, forest grown,
lake-set canyons deep in mid-foreground, the great plateau spreading to
its foothills far beyond the canyons, with now and then a sun glint from
some irrigation pond beyond the foothills on the misty plains of eastern
Colorado. Past the monolith of Terra Tomah Peak, with its fine glacial
gorge of many lakes, past the Sprague Glacier, largest of the several
shrunken fields of moving ice which still remain, he finds, from the
summit of Flattop Mountain, a broad spectacle of real sublimity.
But there is a greater viewpoint close at hand. Crossing the Flattop
Trail which here ascends from the settlements below on its way to the
west side, and skirting the top of the Tyndall Glacier, a scramble of
four hundred feet lands him on the summit of Hallett Peak, 12,725 feet
in altitude. Here indeed is reward. Below him lies the sheer abyss of
the Tyndall Gorge, Dream Lake, a drop of turquoise in its depths; beyond
it a moraine reaches out upon the plateau--six miles in length, a mile
and more in width, nearly a thousand feet in height, holding Bierstadt
Lake upon its level forested crown, an eloquent reminder of that ancient
time when enormous glaciers ripped the granite from these gorges to heap
it in long winding hills upon the plains below. Turning southerly, the
Wild Gardens further spread before his gaze, a tumble of granite masses
rising from lake-dotted, richly forested bottoms. The entrance to Loch
Vale, gem canyon of the Rockies, lies in the valley foreground.
Adjoining it, the entrance to Glacier Gorge, showing one of its several
lakes, rests in peaceful contrast with its impressive eastern wall, a
long, winding, sharp-edged buttress pushing southward and upward to
support the northern shoulder of the monster, Longs Peak, whose squared
summit, from here for all the world like a chef's cap, outlines sharply
against the sky. Hallett Peak welcomes the climber to the Heart of the
Rockies at perhaps their most gorgeous point.
South of Hallett difficult going will disclose new viewpoints of supreme
wildness. Otis Peak, nearly as high as Hallett, looks down upon the
Andrews Glacier, and displays the length of Loch Vale, at whose head
towers Taylor Peak, a giant exceeding thirteen thousand feet.
I have not sketched this tour of the continental divide as a suggestion
for travel, for there are no trails, and none but the mountaineer,
experienced in pioneering, could accomplish it with pleasure and
success, but as a convenient mode of picturing the glories of the
continental divide. Some day a trail, even perhaps a road, for one is
practicable, should make it fully accessible to the greater public.
Meantime Flattop Trail invites valley dwellers of all degrees, afoot and
horseback, up to a point on the divide from which Hallett's summit and
its stupendous view is no great conquest.
The gorges of the Wild Gardens are most enjoyed from below. Trails of no
difficulty lead from the settlements to Fern and Odessa Lakes in a
canyon unsurpassed; to Bear Lake at the outlet of the Tyndall Gorge; to
Loch Vale, whose flower-carpeted terraces and cirque lakelets, Sky Pond
and the Lake of Glass, are encircled with mighty canyon walls; and to
Glacier Gorge, which leads to the foot of Longs Peak's western
precipice. These are spots, each a day's round trip from convenient
overnight hotels, which deserve all the fame that will be theirs when
the people come to know them, for as yet only a few hundreds a summer of
Rocky Mountain's hundred thousand take the trouble to visit them.
To better understand the charm of these gray monsters, and the valleys
and chasms between their knees, we must pause a moment to picture what
architects call the planting, for trees and shrubs and flowers play as
important a part in the informal architectural scheme of the Front Range
as they do in the formality of a palace. It will be recalled that the
zones of vegetation from the equator to the frozen ice fields of the far
north find their counterparts in altitude. The foothills bordering the
Rocky Mountain National Park lie in the austral zone of our middle and
eastern states; its splendid east-side plateau and inter-mountain
valleys represent the luxuriance of the Canadian zone; its mountains
pass rapidly up in a few thousand feet through the Hudsonian zone,
including timber-line at about 11,500 feet; and its highest summits
carry only the mosses, lichens, stunted grasses, and tiny alpine
flowerets of the Arctic Zone.
Thus one may walk waist deep through the marvellous wild flower meadows
of Loch Vale, bordered by luxuriant forests of majestic Engelmann
spruce, pines, firs, junipers, and many deciduous shrubs, and look
upward at the gradations of all vegetation to the arctic seas.
Especially interesting is the revelation when one takes it in order,
climbing into the range. The Fall River Road displays it, but not
dramatically; the forest approach is too long, the climb into the
Hudsonian Zone too short, and not typical. The same is true of the trail
up beautiful Forest Canyon. The reverse is true of the Ute Trail, which
brings one too quickly to the stupendous arctic summit of Trail Ridge.
The Flattop Trail is in many respects the most satisfying, particularly
if one takes the time to make the summit of Hallett Peak, and hunts for
arctic flowerets on the way. But one may also accomplish the purpose in
Loch Vale by climbing all the way to Sky Pond, at the very foot of steep
little Taylor Glacier, or by ascending Glacier Gorge to its head, or by
climbing the Twin Sisters, or Longs Peak as far as Boulder Field, or up
the St. Vrain valley to the top of Meadow Mountain, or Mount Copeland.
All of these ascents are made by fair trails, and all display the
fascinating spectacle of timber-line, which in Rocky Mountain National
Park, I believe, attains its most satisfying popular expression; by
which I mean that here the panorama of the everlasting struggle between
the ambitious climbing forests and the winter gales of the summits seems
to be condensed and summarized, to borrow a figure from the textbooks,
as I have not happened to find it elsewhere. Following up some sheltered
forested ravine to its head, we swing out upon the wind-swept slopes
leading straight to the summit. Snow patches increase in size and number
as the conifers thin and shrink. Presently the trees bend eastward,
permanently mis-shaped by the icy winter blasts. Presently they curve in
semi-circles, or rise bravely in the lee of some great rock, to bend at
right angles from its top. Here and there are full-grown trees growing
prostrate, like a rug, upon the ground.
Close to the summit trees shrink to the size of shrubs, but some of
these have heavy trunks a few feet high, and doubtless have attained
their fulness of development. Gradually they thin and disappear, giving
place to wiry, powerful, deciduous shrubs, and these in turn to growths
still smaller. There are forests of willows just above Rocky Mountain's
timber-line, two or three inches tall, and many acres in extent.
From the Front Range, well in the south of the park, a spur of toothed
granite peaks springs two miles eastward to the monarch of the park,
Longs Peak. It is this position in advance of the range, as much as the
advantage of its 14,255 feet of altitude, which enables this famous
mountain to become the climax of every east-side view.
Longs Peak has a remarkable personality. It is an architectural
creation, a solid granite temple, strongly buttressed upon four sides.
From every point of view it is profoundly different, but always
consistent and recognizable. Seen from the east, it is supported on
either side by mountains of majesty. Joined with it on the north, Mount
Lady Washington rises 13,269 feet, the cleft between their summits being
the way of the trail to Longs Peak summit. Merging with it in mass upon
the south, Mount Meeker rises 13,911 feet. Once the three were one
monster mountain. Frosts and rains carried off the crust strata, bared
the granite core, and chipped it into three summits, while a glacier of
large size gouged out of its middle the abyss which divides the
mountains, and carved the precipice, which drops twenty-four hundred
feet from Longs Peak summit to Chasm Lake. The Chasm, which is easily
reached by trail from the hotels at the mountain's foot, is one of the
wildest places in America. It may be explored in a day.
Mountain climbing is becoming the fashion in Rocky Mountain National
Park among those who never climbed before, and it will not be many years
before its inmost recesses are penetrated by innumerable trampers and
campers. The "stunt" of the park is the ascent of Longs Peak. This is no
particular matter for the experienced, for the trail is well worn, and
the ascent may be made on horseback to the boulder field, less than two
thousand feet from the summit; but to the inexperienced it appears an
undertaking of first magnitude. From the boulder field the trail carries
out upon a long sharp slant which drops into the precipice of Glacier
Gorge, and ascends the box-like summit cap by a shelf trail which
sometimes has terrors for the unaccustomed. Several hundred persons make
the ascent each summer without accident, including many women and a few
children. The one risk is that accidental snow obscure the trail; but
Longs Peak is not often ascended without a guide.
The view from the summit of the entire national park, of the splendid
range south which should be in the park but is not, of the foothills and
pond-spotted plains in the east, of Denver and her mountain background,
and of the Medicine Bow and other ranges west of the park, is one of the
country's great spectacles. Longs Peak is sometimes climbed at night for
the sunrise.