Pike's Peak rises boldly from the plains, going steeply up into the
sky a vertical mile and a half. There is no middle distance or
foreground; no terraced or inclined approach. A spectator may thus
stand close to its foot, at an altitude of six thousand feet, and have
a commanding view of the eight thousand feet of slopes and terraces
which culminate in the summit, 14,110 feet above the sea. Its steep,
abrupt ascent makes it imposing and impressive. It fronts the wide
plains a vast broken tower. The typical high peak stands with other
high peaks in the summit of a mountain-range. Miles of lesser
mountains lie between its summit and the lowlands. Foothills rise from
the edge of the lowland; above these, broken benches, terrace beyond
terrace, each rising higher until the summit rises supreme. With
Pike's Peak this typical arrangement is reversed.
Pike's Peak probably is the most intimately known high mountain. It
has given mountain-top pleasure to more people than any other fourteen
thousand foot summit of the earth. One million persons have walked
upon its summit, and probably two million others have climbed well up
its slopes. Only a few thousand climbers have reached the top of Mont
Blanc. Pike's is a peak for the multitude.
Climbing it is comparatively easy. It stands in a mild, arid climate,
and has scanty snowfall; there are but few precipitous walls, no
dangerous ice-fields; and up most of its slopes any one may ramble.
One may go up on foot, on horseback, in a carriage, or by railroad, or
even by automobile. It is not only easy of ascent, but also easy of
access. It is on the edge of the plains, and a number of railroads
cross its very foot.
This peak affords a unique view,--wide plains to the east, high peaks
to the west. Sixty thousand or more square miles are visible from the
summit. It towers far above the plains, whose streams, hills, and
level spaces stretch away a vast flat picture. To the west it commands
a wondrous array of mountain topography,--a two-hundred-mile front
of shattered, snow-drifted peaks.
[Illustration: PIKE'S PEAK FROM THE TOP OF CASCADE CAÑON]
The peak is an enormous broken pyramid, dotted with high-perched
lakes, cut with plunging streams, broken by cañons, skirted with torn
forests, old and young, and in addition is beautiful with bushes,
meadows, and wild flowers. The major part of the peak's primeval
forest robe was destroyed by fire a half-century ago. Many ragged,
crag-torn areas of the old forest, of a square mile or less, are
connected with young growths from thirty to sixty years old. Much of
this new growth is aspen. From the tree-studies which I have made, I
learn that two forest fires caused most of the destruction. The annual
rings in the young growth, together with the rings in the fire-scarred
trees which did not perish, indicate that the older and more extensive
of these fires wrapped most of the peak in flames and all of it in
smoke during the autumn of 1850. The other fire was in 1880.
Pike's Peak exhibits a number of scenic attractions and is bordered by
other excellent ones. Near are the Royal Gorge, Cripple Creek, and
the fossil-beds at Florissant. The Garden of the Gods, Manitou Mineral
Springs, Glen Eyrie, Crystal Park, the Cave of the Winds, and
Williams, Ruxton, and South Cheyenne Cañons are some of its
attractions.
The fossil-beds at Florissant are one of the most famous of
fossil-deposits. Here was an old Tertiary lake-basin. In the deposit
which filled it--a deposit of fine volcanic sand or ash, sediment, and
other débris--is a wonderful array of fossilized plants and insects of
a past age. All are strangely preserved for us in stone. A part of the
lake appears to have been filled by a volcanic catastrophe which
overwhelmed animals, plants, and insects. Whole and in fragments, they
are lying where they fell. Here have been found upwards of one hundred
recognizable plants, eleven vertebrate animals, and a few hundred
insects. Among the fossil trees are the narrow-leaf cottonwood, the
ginkgo, the magnolia, the incense cedar, and the giant redwood. Water
erosion through the ages has cut deeply into these fossil-beds and
worn and washed away their treasures. This deposit has been but
little studied. But what it has yielded, together with the magnitude
of the unexamined remainder, makes one eager concerning the extent and
the nature of the treasures which still lie buried in it.
Helen Hunt, whose books helped awaken the American people to the
injustice done the Indian and to an appreciation of the scenic
grandeur of the West, lived for many years at the foot of this peak.
Much of her writing was done from commanding points on the peak. She
was temporarily buried on Cheyenne Mountain, and on her former grave
has accumulated a large cairn of stones, contributed singly by
appreciative pilgrims.
South Cheyenne Cañon, like Yosemite, gives a large, clear, and
pleasing picture to the mind. This is due to the individuality and the
artistic grouping of the beauty and grandeur of the cañon. The cañon
is so narrow, and its high walls so precipitous, that it could justly
be called an enormous cleft. At one point the walls are only forty
feet apart; between these a road and a swift, clear stream are
crowded. Inside the entrance stand the two "Pillars of Hercules."
These magnificent rock domes rise nearly one thousand feet, and their
steep, tree-dotted walls are peculiarly pleasing and impressive.
Prospect Dome is another striking rock point in this cañon. The cañon
ends in a colossal cirque, or amphitheatre, about two hundred and
fifty feet deep. Down one side of this a stream makes its seven white
zigzag jumps.
Pike's Peak wins impressiveness by standing by itself. Cheyenne Cañon
is more imposing by being alone,--away from other cañons. This cañon
opens upon the plains. It is a cañon that would win attention
anywhere, but its situation is a most favorable one. Low altitude and
a warm climate welcome trees, grass, bushes, and many kinds of plants
and flowers. These cling to every break, spot, ledge, terrace, and
niche, and thereby touch and decorate the cañon's grim and towering
walls with lovely beauty. Walls, water, and verdure--water in pools
and falls, rocks in cliffs, terraces, and domes, grass and flowers on
slopes and terraces, trees and groves,--a magnificence of rocks, a
richness of verdure, and the charm of running water--all unite in a
picturesque association which makes a glorious and pleasing sunken
garden.
It is probable that Pike's Peak was discovered by Spanish explorers
either in 1598 or in 1601. These are the dates of separate exploring
expeditions which entered Colorado from the south and marched up the
plains in near view of this peak. The discovery is usually accredited,
however, to Lieutenant Pike, who caught sight of it on the 15th day of
November, 1806. Pike's journal of this date says: "At two o'clock in
the afternoon I thought I could distinguish a mountain to our right
which appeared like a small blue cloud; viewed it with a spyglass and
was still more confirmed in my conjecture.... In half an hour it
appeared in full view before us. When our small party arrived on a
hill, they with one accord gave three cheers to the Mexican
Mountains." It appears not to have been called Pike's Peak until about
twenty-five years after Pike first saw it. He spoke of it as the
Mexican Mountains and as Great Peak. The first ascent by white men
was made July 14, 1819, by members of Lieutenant Long's exploring
expedition. For a number of years this peak was called James Peak, in
honor of the naturalist in the Long exploring party.
Pike's Peak has what Montesquieu calls the "most powerful of all
empires, the empire of climate." It stands most of the time in the
sun. All over it the miner and the prospector have searched for gold,
mutilating it here and there with holes. Fires have scarred the sides,
and pasturing has robbed it of flowers and verdure. The reputed
discovery of gold at its base started a flood of gold-seekers west
with "Pike's Peak or bust" enthusiasm. But the climate and scenery of
this peak attract people who come for pleasure and to seek for health.
It has thus brought millions of dollars into Colorado, and it will
probably continue to attract people who seek pleasure and refreshment
and who receive in exchange higher values than they spend. Pike's Peak
is a rich asset.
The summit of Pike's Peak is an excellent place to study the effect of
altitude upon lowland visitors. Individual observations and the
special investigations of scientific men show that altitude has been a
large, unconscious source of nature-faking. During the summer of 1911
a number of English and American scientists, the "Anglo-American
Expedition," spent five weeks on Pike's Peak, making special studies
of the effects of altitude. Their investigations explode the theory
that altitude is a strain upon the heart, or injurious to the system.
These men concluded that the heart is subjected to no greater strain
in high altitudes than at sea-level, except under the strain of
physical exertion. The blood is richer in high altitudes. For every
hundred red corpuscles found at sea-level there are in Colorado
Springs, at six thousand feet, one hundred and ten; and on the summit
of Pike's Peak, from one hundred and forty to one hundred and
fifty-four.
"The danger to people suffering from heart trouble coming into high
altitudes is grossly exaggerated," says Dr. Edward C. Schneider, one
of the Anglo-American expedition. "The rate of circulation is not
materially increased. The blood-pressure on the Peak is not
increased; it is even lowered. The heart--if a person exercises--may
beat a little faster but it does not pump any more blood. The pulse is
a little more rapid. If a man suffering from heart trouble rode up the
peak on a train, remained in his seat, and did not exert himself
physically, his heart would not beat a bit faster at the summit than
when he left Manitou. But if he walked about on the summit there would
be a change, for the exercise would make the heart work harder." But
exercise is not injurious; it is beneficial.
As I found in guiding on Long's Peak, the rarefied air of the heights
was often stimulating, especially to the tongue. Rarefied air is
likened by the scientists to "laughing-gas" and furnishes a plausible
explanation of the queerness which characterizes the action of many
people on mountain-summits. "We saw many visitors at the summit," said
Dr. Schneider in explaining this phase, "who appeared to be
intoxicated. But there was no smell of liquor on their breath. They
were intoxicated with rarefied atmosphere, not with alcohol. The
peculiar effects of laughing-gas and carbon-monoxide gas on people are
due to the lack of oxygen in the gas; and the same applies to the air
at high altitudes."
The summit of Pike's Peak is roomy and comparatively level, and is
composed of broken granite, many of the pieces being of large size. A
stone house stands upon the top. In this for many years was a
government weather-observer. A weather station has just been
re-established on its summit. This will be one of a line of high
weather stations extending across the continent. This unique station
should contribute continuously to the weather news and steadily add to
the sum of climatic knowledge.
This one peak has on its high and broken slopes a majority of the
earth's climatic zones, and a numerous array of the earth's countless
kinds of plant and animal life. One may in two hours go from base to
summit and pass through as many life zones as though he had traveled
northward into the Arctic Circle. Going from base to summit, one would
start in the Upper Sonoran Zone, pass through the Transition,
Canadian, and Hudsonian Zones, and enter the Arctic-Alpine Zone. The
peak has a number of places which exhibit the complexity of climatic
zones. In a deep cañon near Minnehaha Falls, two zones may be seen
side by side on opposite sides of a deep, narrow cañon. The north side
of the cañon, exposed to the sun, has such plants as are found in the
Transition Zone, while the cool south side has an Hudsonian flora.
Here is almost an actual contact of two zones that outside the
mountains are separated by approximately two thousand miles.
The varied climate of this peak makes a large appeal to bird-life.
Upward of one hundred species are found here. People from every part
of the Union are here often startled by the presence of birds which
they thought were far away at home. At the base the melodious
meadowlark sings; along the streams on the middle slopes lives the
contented water-ouzel. Upon the heights are the ptarmigan and the rosy
finch. Often the golden eagle casts his shadow upon all these scenes.
The robin is here, and also the bluebird, bluer, too, than you have
ever seen him. The Western evening grosbeak, a bird with attractive
plumage and pleasing manners, often winters here. The brilliant lazuli
bunting, the Bullock oriole, the red-shafted flicker, and the dear and
dainty goldfinch are present in summer, along with mockingbirds,
wrens, tanagers, thrushes, and scores of other visitants.
A few migratory species winter about the foot of the peak. In summer
they fly to the upper slopes and nest and raise their young in the
miniature arctic prairies of the heights. With the coming of autumn
all descend by easy stages to the foot. The full distance of this
vertical migration could be covered in an hour's flight. Many of the
north-and-south-migrating birds travel a thousand times as far as
these birds of vertical migration.
The big game which formerly ranged this peak included buffalo, deer,
elk, mountain sheep, the grizzly, the black bear, the mountain lion,
the fox, the coyote, and the wolf. Along the descending streams,
through one vertical mile of altitude, were beaver colonies, terrace
upon terrace. No one knows how many varieties of wild flowers each
year bloom in all the Peak's various ragged zones, but there are
probably no fewer than two thousand. Along with these are a number of
species of trees. Covering the lower part of the mountain are growths
of cottonwood, Douglas spruce, yellow pine, white fir, silver spruce,
and the Rocky Mountain birch. Among the flowering plants are the
columbine, shooting-star, monkshood, yucca or Spanish bayonet, and
iris. Ascending, one finds the wintergreen, a number of varieties of
polemonium, the paintbrush, the Northern gentian, the Western yarrow,
and the mertensia. At timber-line, at the altitude of about eleven
thousand five hundred feet, are Engelmann spruce, arctic willow,
mountain birch, foxtail pine, and aspen. At timber-line, too, are the
columbine, the paintbrush, and a number of species of phlox. There are
no trees in the zone which drapes the uppermost two thousand feet of
the summit, but in this are bright flowers,--cushion pinks, the spring
beauty, the alpine gentian, the mountain buckwheat, the white and
yellow mountain avens, the arctic harebell, the marsh-marigold, the
stonecrop, and the forget-me-not. One summer I found a few flowers on
the summit.
Isolation probably rendered the summit of this peak less favorable for
snow-accumulation during the Ice Age than the summits of unisolated
peaks of equal altitude. During the last ice epoch, however, it
carried glaciers, and some of these extended down the slopes three
miles or farther. These degraded the upper slopes, moved this
excavated material toward the bottom, and spread it in a number of
places. There are five distinct cuplike hollows or depressions in this
peak that were gouged by glaciers. The one lying between Cameron's
Cone and the summit is known as the "Crater." A part of this is
readily seen from Colorado Springs. Far up the slopes are Lake Moraine
and Seven Lakes, all of glacial origin.
The mountain mass which culminates in Pike's Peak probably originated
as a vast uplift. Internal forces appear to have severed this mass
from its surroundings and slowly upraised it seven thousand or more
feet. The slow uprising probably ended thousands of years ago. Since
that time, disintegration, frost, air, and stream erosion have
combined to sculpture this great peak. Pike's Peak might well be made
a National Park.