block, the Ice King. The glacier is well worth visiting, especially
late in summer, when the winter mantle is gone from its crevasses,
leaving revealed its blue-green ice and its many grottoes. It is every
inch a glacier. There are other small glaciers above the Park, but
these glacial remnants, though interesting, are not as imposing as the
glacial records, the old works which were deposited by the Ice King.
The many kinds of moraines here display his former occupation and
activities. There are glaciated walls, polished surfaces, eroded
basins, and numerous lateral moraines. One of the moraines is probably
the largest and certainly one of the most interesting in the Rockies.
It occupies about ten square miles on the eastern slope of the
mountain. Above timber-line this and other moraines seem surprisingly
fresh and new, as though they had been formed only a few years, but
below tree-line they are forested, and the accumulation of humus upon
them shows that they have long been bearers of trees.
The rugged Peak looks down over all this wild garden, and is a
perpetual challenge to those who go up to the sky on mountains. It is
a grand old granite peak. There are not many mountains that require
more effort from the climber, and few indeed can reward him with such
a far-spreading and magnificent view.
[Illustration: IN THE UNCOMPAHGRE MOUNTAINS]
One of the most interesting and impressive localities in the Rockies
lies around Mt. Wetterhorn, Mt. Coxcomb, and Uncompahgre Peak. Here I
have found the birds confiding, and most wild animals so tame that it
was a joy to be with them. But this was years ago, and now most of the
wild animals are wilder and the birds have found that man will not
bear acquaintance. Most of this region was recently embraced in the
Uncompahgre National Forest. It has much for the scientist and
nature-lover: the mountain-climber will find peaks to conquer and
cañons to explore; the geologist will find many valuable stone
manuscripts; the forester who interviews the trees will have from
their tongues a story worth while; and here, too, are some of Nature's
best pictures for those who revel only in the lovely and the wild.
It is a strikingly picturesque by-world, where there are many
illuminated and splendid fragments of Nature's story. He who visits
this section will first be attracted by an array of rock-formations,
and, wander where he will, grotesque and beautiful shapes in stone
will frequently attract and interest his attention.
The rock-formation is made up of mixtures of very unequally tempered
rock metal, which weathers in strange, weird, and impressive shapes.
Much of this statuary is gigantic and uncouth, but some of it is
beautiful. There are minarets, monoliths, domes, spires, and shapeless
fragments. In places there are, seemingly, restive forms not entirely
free from earth. Most of these figures are found upon the crests of
the mountains, and many of the mountain-ridges, with their numerous
spikes and gigantic monoliths, some of which are tilted perilously
from the perpendicular, give one a feeling of awe. Some of the
monoliths appear like broken, knotty tree-trunks. Others stand
straight and suggest the Egyptian obelisks. They hold rude natural
hieroglyphics in relief. One mountain, which is known as Turret-Top,
is crowned with what from a distance seems to be a gigantic
picket-fence. This fence is formed by a row of monolithic stones.
One of the most remarkable things connected with this strange locality
is that its impressive landscapes may be overturned or blotted out, or
new scenes may be brought forth, in a day. The mountains do not stand
a storm well. A hard rain will dissolve ridges, lay bare new strata,
undermine and overturn cliffs. It seems almost a land of enchantment,
where old landmarks may disappear in a single storm, or an impressive
landscape come forth in a night. Here the god of erosion works
incessantly and rapidly, dissecting the earth and the rocks. During
a single storm a hilltop may dissolve, a mountain-side be fluted with
slides, a grove be overturned and swept away by an avalanche, or a
lake be buried forever. This rapid erosion of slopes and summits
causes many changes and much upbuilding upon their bases. Gulches are
filled, water-courses invaded, rivers bent far to one side, and groves
slowly buried alive.
One night, while I was in camp on the slope of Mt. Coxcomb, a
prolonged drought was broken by a very heavy rain. Within an hour
after the rain started, a large crag near the top of the peak fell and
came crashing and rumbling down the slope. During the next two hours
I counted the rumbling crash of forty others. I know not how many small
avalanches may have slipped during this time that I did not hear. The
next day I went about looking at the new landscapes and the strata
laid bare by erosion and landslide, and up near the top of this peak
I found a large glaciated lava boulder. A lava boulder that has been
shaped by the ice and has for a time found a resting-place in a
sedentary formation, then been uplifted to near a mountain-top, has a
wonder-story of its own. One day I came across a member of the United
States Geological Survey who had lost his way. At my camp-fire that
evening I asked him to hug facts and tell me a possible story of the
glaciated lava boulder. The following is his account:--
The shaping of that boulder must have antedated by ages the shaping of
the Sphinx, and its story, if acceptably told, would seem more like
fancy than fact. If the boulder were to relate, briefly, its
experiences, it might say: "I helped burn forests and strange cities
as I came red-hot from a volcano's throat, and I was scarcely cool
when disintegration brought flowers to cover my dead form. By and by a
long, long winter came, and toward the close of it I was sheared off,
ground, pushed, rolled, and rounded beneath the ice. 'Why are you
grinding me up?' I asked the glacier. 'To make food for the trees and
the flowers during the earth's next temperate epoch,' it answered. One
day a river swept me out of its delta and I rolled to the bottom of
the sea. Here I lay for I know not how long, with sand and boulders
piling upon me. Here heat, weight, and water fixed me in a stratum
of materials that had accumulated below and above me. My stratum was
displaced before it was thoroughly solidified, and I felt myself
slowly raised until I could look out over the surface of the sea. The
waves at once began to wear me, and they jumped up and tore at me
until I was lifted above their reach. At last, when I was many
thousand feet above the waves, I came to a standstill. Then my
mountain-top was much higher than at present. For a long time I looked
down upon a tropical world. I am now wondering if the Ice King will
come for me again."
The Engelmann spruce forest here is an exceptionally fine one, and the
geologist and I discussed it and trees in general. Some of the Indian
tribes of the Rockies have traditions of a "Big Fire" about four
centuries ago. There is some evidence of a general fire over the
Rockies about the time that the Indian's tradition places it, but in
this forest there were no indications that there had ever been a fire.
Trees were in all stages of growth and decay. Humus was deep. Here I
found a stump of a Douglas spruce that was eleven feet high and about
nine feet in diameter. It was so decayed that I could not decipher the
rings of growth. This tree probably required at least a thousand years
to reach maturity, and many years must have elapsed for its wood to
come to the present state of decay. Over this stump was spread the
limbs of a live tree that was four hundred years of age.
Trees have tongues, and in this forest I interviewed many patriarchs,
had stories from saplings, examined the mouldy, musty records of many
a family tree, and dug up some buried history. The geologist wanted in
story form a synopsis of what the records said and what the trees told
me, so I gave him this account:--
"We climbed in here some time after the retreat of the last Ice King
and found aspen and lodge-pole pine in possession. These trees fought
us for several generations, but we finally drove them out. For ages
the Engelmann spruce family has had undisputed possession of this
slope. We stand amid three generations of mouldering ancestors, and
beneath these is the sacred mould of older generations still.
[Illustration: A GRASS-PLOT AMONG ENGELMANN SPRUCE]
"One spring, when most of the present grown-up trees were very young,
the robins, as they flew north, were heard talking of strange men who
were exploring the West Indies. A few years later came the big fire
over the Rockies, which for months choked the sky with smoke. Fire did
not get into our gulch, but from birds and bears which crowded into it
we learned that straggling trees and a few groves on the Rockies were
all that had escaped with their lives. Since we had been spared, we
all sent out our seed for tree-colonies as rapidly as we could, and in
so doing we received much help from the birds, the squirrels, and the
bears, so that it was not long before we again had our plumes waving
everywhere over the Rockies. About a hundred and sixty years ago, an
earthquake shook many of us down and wounded thousands of others with
the rock bombardment from the cliffs. The drought a century ago was
hard on us, and many perished for water. Not long after the drought we
began to see the trappers, but they never did us any harm. Most of
them were as careful of our temples as were the Indians. While the
trappers still roamed, there came a very snowy winter, and snow-slides
mowed us down by thousands. Many of us were long buried beneath the
snow. The old trees became dreadfully alarmed, and they feared that
the Ice King was returning. For weeks they talked of nothing else, but
in the spring, when the mountain-sides began to warm and peel off in
earth-avalanches, we had a real danger to discuss.
"Shortly after the snowy winter, the gold-seekers came with their
fire havoc. For fifty years we have done our best to hold our ground,
but beyond our gulch relentless fire and flashing steel, together with
the floods with which outraged Nature seeks to revenge herself, have
slain the grand majority, and much, even, of the precious dust of our
ancestors has been washed away."
With the exception of the night I had the geologist, my days and
nights in this locality were spent entirely alone. The blaze of the
camp-fire, moonlight, the music and movement of the winds, light and
shade, and the eloquence of silence all impressed me more deeply here
than anywhere else I have ever been. Every day there was a delightful
play of light and shade, and this was especially effective on the
summits; the ever-changing light upon the serrated mountain-crests
kept constantly altering their tone and outline. Black and white they
stood in midday glare, but a new grandeur was born when these tattered
crags appeared above storm-clouds. Fleeting glimpses of the crests
through a surging storm arouse strange feelings, and one is at bay,
as though having just awakened amid the vast and vague on another
planet. But when the long, white evening light streams from the west
between the minarets, and the black buttressed crags wear the alpine
glow, one's feelings are too deep for words.
The wind sometimes flowed like a torrent across the ridges, surging
and ripping between the minarets, then bearing down like an avalanche
upon the purple sylvan ocean, where it tossed the trees with boom,
roar, and wild commotion. I usually camped where it showed the most
enthusiasm. Here I often enjoyed the songs or the fierce activities
of the wind. The absence and the presence of wind ever stirred me
strongly. Weird and strange are the feelings that flow as the winds
sweep and sound through the trees. The Storm King has a bugle at his
lips, and a deep, elemental hymn is sung while the blast surges wild
through the pines. Mother Nature is quietly singing, singing soft and
low while the breezes pause and play in the pines. From the past one
has been ever coming, with the future destined ever to go when, with
centuries of worshipful silence, one waits for the winds in the pines.
Ever the good old world grows better both with songs and with silence
in the pines.
Here the energy and eloquence of silence was at its best. That
all-pervading presence called silence has its happy home within the
forest. Silence sounds rhythmic to all, and attunes all minds to the
strange message, the rhapsody of the universe. Silence is almost as
kind to mortals as its sweet sister sleep.
A primeval spruce forest crowds all the mountain-slopes of the
Uncompahgre region from an altitude of eight thousand feet to
timber-line. So dense is this forest that only straggling bits of
sun-fire ever fall to the ground. Beneath these spiry, crowding trees
one has only "the twilight of the forest noon." This forest, when seen
from near-by mountain-tops, seems to be a great ragged, purple robe
hanging in folds from the snow-fields, while down through it the white
streams rush. A few crags pierce it, sun-filled grass-plots dot its
expanse at intervals, and here and there it is rent with a vertical
avalanche lane.
Many a happy journey and delightful climb I have had in the mountains
all alone by moonlight, and in the Uncompahgre district I had many a
moonlight ramble. I know what it is to be alone on high peaks with the
moon, and I have felt the spell that holds the lonely wanderer when,
on a still night, he feels the wistful, tender touch of the summer
air, while the leaves whisper and listen in the moonlight, and the
moon-toned etchings of the pines fall upon the magic forest floor.
One of the best moonlit times that I have had in this region was
during my last visit to it. One October night I camped in a grass-plot
in the depths of a spruce forest. The white moon rose grandly from
behind the minareted mountain, hesitated for a moment among the
tree-spires, then tranquilly floated up into space. It was a still
night. There was silence in the treetops. The river near by faintly
murmured in repose. Everything was at rest. The grass-plot was full
of romantic light, and on its eastern margin was an etching of spiry
spruce. A dead and broken tree on the edge of the grass-plot looked
like a weird prowler just out of the woods, and seemed half-inclined
to come out into the light and speak to me. All was still. The moonlit
mist clung fantastically to the mossy festoons of the fir trees.
I was miles from the nearest human soul, and as I stood in the
enchanting scene, amid the beautiful mellow light, I seemed to have
been wafted back into the legend-weaving age. The silence was softly
invaded by zephyrs whispering in the treetops, and a few moonlit
clouds that showed shadow centre-boards came lazily drifting along the
bases of the minarets, as though they were looking for some place in
particular, although in no hurry to find it. Heavier cloud-flotillas
followed, and these floated on the forest sea, touching the treetops
with the gentleness of a lover's hand. I lay down by my camp-fire to
let my fancy frolic, and fairest dreams came on.
It was while camping once on the slope of Mt. Coxcomb that I felt most
strongly the spell of the camp-fire. I wish every one could have a
night by a camp-fire,--by Mother Nature's old hearthstone. When one
sits in the forest within the camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid
the silent, sculptured trees, there go thrilling through one's blood
all the trials and triumphs of our race. The blazing wood, the ragged
and changing flame, the storms and calms, the mingling smoke and
blaze, the shadow-figures that dance against the trees, the scenes and
figures in the fire,--with these, though all are new and strange, yet
you feel at home once more in the woods. A camp-fire in the forest is
the most enchanting place on life's highway by which to have a lodging
for the night.
Index
Alma, 119, 127.
_Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi_. _See_ Kinnikinick.
Aspen, 204-206, 208.
Bears, vapor from a bear, 20;
a bear and her cubs, 79;
prospectors besieged by, 217-229;
feeding on choke-cherries, 237.
Beaver, 238, 242;
usefulness of, 53;
cutting trees, 54-56;
young, 56-58;
houses of, 57;
granary of, 58;
tools of, 58, 59;
dam-building, 59, 60;
growth of a dam, 61;
the dam a highway, 61;
influence of dams on stream-flow, 61-64;
dams catching and holding soil, 64-67;
value of, 67.
Birds, Rocky Mountain, abundance of, 151, 152, 237;
various species of, 152-159;
song of, 159;
a pet quail, 160-167;
of a mountain park, 241, 242.
Boulder, a lava, 247-249.
Cabin, a night in a deserted, 22, 23.
Camp-fires, 5, 6, 77;
the spell of the camp-fire, 256, 257.
Camping outfit, 4.
Carpenter, Prof. L. G., 4, 83.
Chambers Lake, 93.
Chickadee, 155.
Chipmunk, 242.
Columbine, 208.
Cottonwood, broad-leaf, 200.
Cottonwood, narrow-leaf, 200.
Coyotes, 77, 242;
Scotch and the, 133-138;
usefulness of, 237.
Crested Butte, 7.
Crow, 156-158.
Deer, 9.
Dog, the story of a collie, 131-147;
a St. Bernard and a pet quail, 160, 164-167.
Edwinia, 208.
Electrical phenomena, in winter, 26;
before the Poudre flood, 83-95.
Fir, balsam (_Abies lasiocarpa_), 207, 208.
Fir, Douglas. _See_ Spruce, Douglas.
Fires, forest, 12, 14;
and the lodge-pole pine, 186, 187, 191, 192;
causes of, 209;
effects of, 209, 210;
Indian tradition of a "Big Fire," 249, 250.
Flowers, above timber-line, 211-213;
of a mountain park, 241.
Forestry, an address on, 13, 14.
Gem Lake, 240.
Geneva Park, 217.
Geologist, a night with a, 247-252.
Girl, climbing Long's Peak with an eight-year-old, 99-111.
Glaciation, 234, 235, 243.
Glaciers, 243.
Grand Ditch Camp, 93.
Grand Lake, 14, 15, 22.
Ground-hog, 110, 237.
Grouse, 9.
Hague's Peak, 84.
Hoosier Pass, 119, 123.
Horses, return, 115-118;
Midget, 119-128.
Hotel, ejected from a, 11.
Ice, fine arts of, 12.
Kinnikinick, a plant pioneer, 171-175;
its nursery for trees, 175, 176;
growth of, 176, 177;
flowers and fruit of, 177;
as a bed, 177, 178;
a legend of, 178, 179;
reclaiming work of, 180.
Lakes, 235, 239, 240.
Lead Mountain, 9.
Leadville, 125.
Lion, mountain, 6, 20, 23;
an epicure, 9, 10;
tracked by a, 10.
Long's Peak, 15, 84;
a climb up, with a little girl, 99-111;
summit of, 109, 110;
Scotch and the young lady on, 138-141;
a winter climb with Scotch, 142-147;
birds on summit of, 158.
Loveland, 91.
Mammals, 237.
Medicine Bow National Forest, 23.
Medicine-men, 10, 11.
Mesa Verde, 31, 48, 49.
Moonlight, the mountains by, 254-256.
Mt. Coxcomb, 244;
camping on the slope of, 246-254, 256.
Mt. Lincoln, 11, 123.
Mt. Richthofen, 93.
Mt. Silverheels, 120, 121.
Mt. Wetterhorn, 244.
Ouzel, water, 100-102, 152, 153, 158, 159.
Park, a Rocky Mountain, 238-244.
Pine, nursed by kinnikinick, 175, 176.
Pine, lodge-pole, its names, 183;
description of, 183;
its habit of growth, 183, 184;
its aggressive character, 184;
distribution of, 184, 185, 208;
its method of dispersing its seeds, 185-187, 191;
growth of, 187, 188, 193, 194;
as a colonist and pioneer, 189;
cones embedded in, 189, 190;
sunlight necessary to, 190;
fire in a forest of, 191, 192;
enemies of, 193;
uses of, 193;
value of, 193-195.
Pine, Western yellow, a thousand-year-old, 31-50;
habits of the, 200-204;
character of the, 240.
_Pinus flexilis_, 188, 208.
Plants, of the summit-slopes, 235, 236.
Potentilla, 208.
Poudre Lakes, 86.
Poudre Valley, flood in, 83, 95.
Ptarmigan, 9, 107, 153, 158.
Quail, a pet, 161-167.
Rabbit, snowshoe, 9.
Rex, a St. Bernard dog, 160, 164-167.
Rock, easily eroded, 246.
Rock-formations, grotesque and beautiful, 245, 246.
Rocky Mountains, individuality of, 213;
character of, 233, 234.
Schoolhouse, a mountain, 13.
Sheep, mountain, 9;
a flock of, 78.
Silence, 254.
Snow, tracks in, 9.
Snow-cornice, breaking through a, 17.
Snow-fall, 7.
Snow-slides, 19, 20;
an adventure with a snow-slide, 24, 25.
Snowstorm, a, 8.
Solitaire, 153-155.
Specimen Mountain, electrical phenomena on, 88-92.
Spruce, Colorado blue or silver, 207, 208.
Spruce, Douglas, or Douglas fir, 188, 189, 203, 204;
a large stump, 249.
Spruce, Engelmann, 188, 189, 208, 241, 249;
the story of a forest of, 250-252.
Squirrel, Douglas, 242;
as a nurseryman, 34, 35;
and the old pine, 35, 47;
character of, 79;
cutting off and storing cones, 102-104.
Thrush, Audubon's hermit, 152, 154.
Timber-line, 104-107, 208, 209.
Trap Creek, 94, 95.
Trees, of the Rocky Mountains, 199-211, 236. _See also individual
species_.
Turret-Top, 245.
Uncompahgre National Forest, 244.
Uncompahgre Peak, 244.
Uncompahgre region, wonders of the, 244-256.
Wind, 253.
Wolves, an adventure with, 71-75.
Woodpecker, Texas, 39, 40.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
Transcriber's Note
Variant and inconsistent spellings in the original text have been
retained in this ebook (for instance: kodak, cosy, halfway and
half-way; kinnikinick and Kinnikinick).
Some illustrations have been moved from their original locations to
paragraph breaks, so as to be nearer to their corresponding text, or
for ease of document navigation.
Duplicate chapter titles have been removed in the text version and
hidden in the HTML version of this ebook.
The following typographical corrections have been made to this text:
Page xi: Changed 64 to 63, to account for illustration repositioning
Page 27: Changed spendid to splendid (calm and splendid forest)
Page 202: Changed eight to eighty (eighty-five feet high)
End of Project Gutenberg's Wild Life on the Rockies, by Enos A. Mills