different winters and also with individuals. I have many times counted
upwards of two hundred per squirrel. During years of scanty cone-crop
the squirrels claim the entire crop. The outcry raised against the
squirrel for preventing far extension, by consuming all the seeds, is
I think in the same class as the cry against the woodpecker; it
appears a cry raised by those who see only the harm without the
accompanying good. The fact is that many of the cones are never eaten;
more are stored than are wanted; some are forgotten, while others are
left by the death of the squirrel. Thus many are stored and left
uneaten in places where they are likely to germinate and produce
trees. John Muir too believes that the Douglas and Frémont squirrels
are beneficial to forest-extension.
Commonly the cones are stored in the same place year after year. In
dining, also, the squirrel uses a log, limb, or stump year after year.
Thus bushels of the slowly decaying scales and cobs accumulate in one
place. It is not uncommon for these accumulations to cover a square
rod to the depth of two feet.
I know of a few instances in which squirrels stowed cones in the edge
of a brook beneath the water. One of these places being near my cabin,
I kept track of it until the cones were used, which was in the spring.
In early autumn the cones were frozen in, and there they remained,
unvisited I think, until the break-up of the ice in April. Then a
squirrel appeared, to drag them from their cold storage. He carried
each by to his regular dining-place. Clasping the cone vertically,
base up, in his fore paws, he snipped off the scales and ate the seeds
beneath in regular order, turning the cone as he proceeded as though
it were an ear of corn and he were eating the kernels.
I have often waited to see a squirrel go for something to eat after a
snowstorm. This he did in a matter-of-fact way. Without hunting or
hesitation he went hopping across the snow to a spot immediately above
his supplies, where he at once pawed his way down into the snow and
came up with a cone.
In rambling the woods I have often heard these squirrels barking and
"chickareeing" with wild hilarity, apparently from the pure joy of
living. Then again they proclaimed my distant approach, or presence,
with unnecessary vigor. The energetic protest they make against the
trespasser in their woods, is often, if not always, taken by big game
as a warning. Generally on hearing this the game will be all alert for
some seconds, and occasionally will move off to a more commanding
position. Sometimes birds will stop and listen when this tree-top
sentinel shouts warnings which have often saved big game from being
shot. Most hunters hate this squirrel.
There are brief periods in winter when these squirrels disappear for
days at a time. The kind of weather does not appear to be a
determining factor in this. During this disappearance they probably
take a hibernating sleep; anyway, I have in a few cases seen them so
soundly asleep that the fall and fracture of their tree did not awaken
them. They sometimes live, temporarily at least, in holes in the
ground, but the home is usually in a hollow limb or a cavern in a
tree-trunk well toward the top of the tree. Commonly four young ones
are brought forth at a birth. Cunning, happy midgets they are when
first beginning their acquaintance with the wooded world, and taking
sun baths on a high limb of their house tree.
Just how long they live no one appears to know. As pets they have been
kept for ten years. A pair lived near my cabin for eight years, then
disappeared. Whether they migrated or met a violent death, I never
knew. There was another pair in the grove that I kept track of through
eleven years. This grove was a wedge-shaped one of about ten acres
that stood between two brooks. With but few exceptions, the trees were
lodge-pole pine. My acquaintance with the pair began one day in early
autumn. Both set up such a wild chatter as I approached the grove that
I first thought that something was attacking them. Seated upon a log
close to the tree which they occupied, I watched them for three or
four hours. They in turn watched me. Failing to dislodge me by
vehement denunciation, they quieted down and eyed me with intense
curiosity. I sat perfectly still. Evidently they were greatly puzzled
and unable to make out what I was and what of all things on earth it
could be that I wanted. With beady eyes they stared at me from a
number of positions in several trees. Occasionally in the midst of
this silent, eager eying one would break out in a half-repressed and
drawling bark that was unconsciously, nervously repeated at brief
intervals.
The next day they silently allowed me to take a seat. After a brief
stare they grew bold with curiosity and descended to the earth for a
closer investigation. Pausing for a sharp look, both suddenly exploded
with wild chatter and fled with a retchy barking to the tree-tops. In
less than a month they took peanuts from my fingers. They were easily
terrified by a loud noise or sudden movement. One day an acquaintance
came to see me while I was in the grove with the squirrels. By way of
heralding his approach, he flung a club which fell with a crash upon a
brush pile alongside these most nervous fellows. They fled in terror,
and it was two or three days before they would come near me again.
One year the grove cone-crop was a total failure. As a result, Mr. and
Mrs. Frémont temporarily abandoned their old home and moved to new
quarters on a mountainside about half a mile distant. The day they
moved I was by the brook, watching a water-ouzel, when they chanced to
cross on a fallen log near-by. In passing, one paused to give a hasty,
half-glad, half-frightened, chattery bark of recognition. They
hastened across the grassy open beyond as though they felt themselves
in danger when out of the woods.
They made a home in an old snag, using places that were, I think,
formerly used by woodpeckers. The afternoon of their arrival they
commenced to harvest cones, which were abundant on the spruce trees
around them. I often wondered if they made a preliminary trip and
located a food-supply before moving, or if they simply started forth
and stopped at the first favorable place.
The following summer they returned to their old quarters in the grove.
The first time that I saw them they were sitting upon a log daintily
making a breakfast of fresh mushrooms. They often ate the inner bark
of pine twigs, and once I saw one of them eating wild raspberries. I
never saw these, or any Frémont squirrel, robbing or trying to rob a
bird's nest, and as I have never noticed a bird disturbed by their
presence, I believe they are not guilty of this serious offense, as
are most kinds of squirrels.
Through eleven years I occasionally fed them. Apparently full-grown at
the time of our first meeting, they were active and agile to the last.
After eleven years they showed but few and minor signs of aging.
One was shot by a gun-carrying visitor. While I was dismissing the
gunner, my attention was attracted by the wailing of her mate when he
found her lifeless body. His grief was most pitiful; among wild birds
and animals I have never seen anything so pathetic. Almost humanly he
stared at his mate; he fondled her and tried to coax her back to life,
at times almost pleading and wailing. When I carried her off for
burial he sat moveless and dazed. The following day I searched the
grove, whistling and calling, but I never saw him again.
The Estes Park Region
The Estes Park Region
The Estes Park region became famous for its scenery during the height
of the Rocky Mountain gold-fever half a century ago. While Colorado
was still a Territory, its scenes were visited by Helen Hunt, Anna
Dickinson, and Isabella Bird, all of whom sang the praises of this
great hanging wild garden.
The park is a natural one,--a mingling of meadows, headlands, groves,
winding streams deeply set in high mountains whose forested steeps and
snowy, broken tops stand high and bold above its romantic loveliness.
It is a marvelous grouping of gentleness and grandeur; an eloquent,
wordless hymn, that is sung in silent, poetic pictures; a sublime
garden miles in extent and all arranged with infinite care.
Grace Greenwood once declared that the skyline of this region, when
seen from out in the Great Plains, loomed up like the Alps from the
plains of Lombardy.
Long's Peak, "King of the Rocky Mountains," dominates these scenes.
Around this peak, within a radius of fifteen miles, is a striking and
composite grouping of the best features of the Rocky Mountain scenery.
Again and again I have explored every nook and height of this scenic
mountain wilderness, enjoying its forests, lakes, and cañons during
every month of the year.
Frost and fire have had much to do with its lines and landscapes. Ice
has wrought bold sculptures, while fire made the graceful open
gardens, forest-framed and flower-filled in the sun. The region was
occupied by the Ice King during the last glacial period. Many rounded
peaks, U-shaped, polished gorges, enormous morainal embankments,
upwards of fifty lakes and tarns--almost the entire present striking
landscape--were shaped through the ages by the slow sculpturing of the
ice. Forest fires have made marked changes, and many of the wide
poetic places--the grassy parks--in the woods are largely due to
severe and repeated burnings.
[Illustration: LONG'S PEAK AND ESTES PARK]
This locality has been swept by fire again and again. Most of the
forest is less than two hundred years of age. During the past two
hundred years, beginning with 1707, there have been no less than seven
forest fires, two of which appear to have swept over most of the
region. There probably were other fires, the records of which have
vanished. The dates of these scourges and in many cases the extent of
their ravages were burned into the annual rings of a number of trees
which escaped with their lives and lived on, carrying these
fire-records down to us. These fires, together with the erosion which
followed, had something to do with the topography and the scenery of
this section. There are a few ugly scars from recent fires, but most
of the burned areas were reforested with reasonable promptness. Some
crags, however, may have lost for centuries their trees and
vegetation. Other areas, though losing trees, gained in meadows. I am
strongly inclined to ascribe much of the openness--the existence
even--of Estes, Allen's, and Middle Parks to repeated fires, some of
which probably were severe. Thus we may look down from the heights
and enjoy the mingling beauty and grandeur of forest and meadow and
still realize that fire, with all its destructiveness, may help to
make the gardens of the earth.
A dozen species of trees form the forests of this section. These
forests, delightfully inviting, cover the mountains below the altitude
of eleven thousand feet. This rich robe, draping from the shoulders to
the feet of the mountains, appears a dark purple from a distance. A
great robe it hangs over every steep and slope, smooth, wrinkled, and
torn; pierced with pinnacles and spires, gathered on terraces and
headlands, uplifted on the swells, and torn by cañons. Here and there
this forest is beautified with a ragged-edged grass-plot, a lake, or a
stream that flows, ever singing, on.
The trees which brave the heights and maintain the forest frontier
among the storms, are the Engelmann spruce, sub-alpine fir, arctic
willow, black birch, quaking aspen, and limber pine. For the most
part, timber-line is a trifle above eleven thousand feet, but in a few
places the trees climb up almost to twelve thousand. Most of the
trees at timber-line are distorted and stunted by the hard conditions.
Snow covers and crushes them; cold chains their activity through the
greater part of the year; the high winds drain their sap, persecute
them with relentless sand-blasts, and break their limbs and roots.
Among glacier-records in the Rocky Mountains those on the slopes of
Long's Peak are pre-eminent for magnitude and interest. On the western
slope of this peak the ice stream descended into the upper end of
Glacier Gorge, where it united with streams from Mt. Barrat and
McHenry Peak. Here it flowed northward for two miles through the now
wonderfully ice-carved Glacier Gorge. Beyond the gorge heavy ice
rivers flooded down to this ice stream from Thatch-Top, Taylor, Otis,
and Hallett Peaks. A mile beyond the gorge it was deflected to the
east by the solid slopes of Flat-Top and Mt. Hallett. It descended to
about the altitude of eight thousand feet. Along its lower course, the
lateral moraine on the south side dammed up a number of small water
channels that drained the northern slope of Battle Mountain.
On the northern slope of the Peak a boulder field begins at the
altitude of thirteen thousand feet and descends over a wide field,
then over a terraced slope. Though probably not of great depth, it
will average a mile wide and extends four miles down the slope. It
contains an immense amount of material, enough to form a great
mountain-peak. Probably the greatest array of glacial débris is the
Mills Moraine on the east side of the Peak. This covers several
thousand acres, consists of boulders, rock-fragments, and rock-flour,
and in places is several hundred feet deep.
Where has all this wreckage come from? Some geologists have expressed
the opinion that ages ago Long's Peak was two thousand or so feet
higher. At the time of its great height, Long's Peak was united with
the near surrounding peaks,--Meeker, Washington, and Storm,--and all
stood together as one peak. The present shattered condition of these
peaks, their crumbling nature, the mountain masses of débris on the
slopes below, all of which must have come from heights above, suggest
this explanation. But to take it as it now is, to stand on this
crumbling peak to-day and look down upon the lakes, moraines, polished
gorges,--all the vast and varied glacial works and ruins,--is for the
geological student startling and profoundly eloquent.
Above the altitude of thirteen thousand feet are many fields of
"eternal snow," and a dozen miles to the south of Long's Peak is the
Arapahoe Glacier; while northward are the Andrews, Sprague, and
Hallett Glaciers within ten miles. Though all these are small, each
exhibits in a striking manner the Ice Age in a nutshell. On the east
side of Long's Peak, too, is a moving ice-field that might well be
classed as a glacier. By this ice begins the upper extent of the Mills
Moraine, and in the gorge just below--one of the most utterly wild
places on the earth--is Chasm Lake.
Most of the glacier lakes are in gorges or on terraces between the
altitudes of eleven thousand and twelve thousand feet. Almost all
have a slope or steep rising above them, down which the ice descended
while gouging out their basins.
Grand Lake, one of the largest reservoirs constructed by the Ice King
in the Rocky Mountains, is three miles in length and one in width, cut
into bed-rock. This lake is less than nine thousand feet above the
sea. It is in the eastern extremity of Middle Park, a few miles to the
west of Long's Peak. Great peaks rising from it, a great moraine
sweeping along its northerly and westerly shores, it peacefully shows
the titanic beautifying landscape labors of the ice.
The glacial winter is over. The present snowfall over this section is
about one half that of the Alps. Here snow-line is thirteen thousand
feet above the sea, while in the Alps it is four thousand feet lower.
Down from the heights of all the high peaks pour many white streams
ever singing the song of the sea.
In these mountains there are many deep gorges and cañons. Most of
these are short and ice-polished. The Thompson Cañon is one of the
longest and finest. Its twenty miles of walled length is full of
scenic contrasts and picturesque varieties. The lovely mingles with
the wild. In places its walls stand two thousand feet above the river
and the daisies. The walls are many-formed, rugged, polished,
perpendicular, terraced, and statuesque, and are adorned with panels
of rusty veneer, with decorative lichen tracery or with vertical
meadows of velvet moss. Blossoms fill many niches with poetry, while
shrubbery, concealing in its clinging the cracks in the wall, forms
many a charming festoon.
In some stretches the parallel walls go straight away, well separated;
then they curve, or crowd so closely that there is barely room for the
river and the road. At intervals the walls sweep outward in short,
grand semicircles and inclose ideal wild gardens of pines, grass,
flowers, and the winding river. The river is ever varying its speed,
its surface, and its song. Here it is a boulder-framed mirror
reflecting the aspens and the sky, there a stretch of foam-flow; now
it rests in a wild pool pierced with sharp rocks, now it hurries on to
plunge and roar over a terrace of rocks, then on, always on, toward
the sea.
Speckled and rainbow trout dart in the streams. Mountain sheep climb
and pose on the crags; bear, deer, and mountain lions are still
occasionally seen prowling the woods or hurrying across the meadows.
The wise coyote is also occasionally seen darting under cover, and he
is frequently heard during the night. Here among the evergreens is
found that wee and audacious bit of intensely interesting and animated
life, the Frémont squirrel, and also, one of the dearest of all small
animals, the merry chipmunk. Within this territory are a number of
beaver colonies, whose ways I have described in earlier chapters.
The entire region is a wild-flower garden. Bloom-time lasts all summer
long. The scores of streams which splash down from the snows are
fringed with ferns and blossoms. There are many areas petalled with
red, blue, purple, and gold. Difference of altitude, topography, and
moisture-distribution induce nearly a thousand varieties to bloom in
and to color this glad wild garden. July is white with Mariposa
lilies. Wild roses, sweet peas, daisies, tiger lilies, violets,
orchids, primroses, fringed blue gentians give their color and their
perfume to the friendly air. Here flourishes the Rocky Mountain
columbine.
The region is gladdened with many kinds of birds. On the heights lives
the serene, self-contained ptarmigan; the "camp-bird" resides in the
upland forests; hummingbirds flit here and there; the robin sings and
re-sings its song over the lowlands; blackbirds swing on the willows
by the brooks; the wise magpie spreads his spotted wings and explores
every corner. Along the cascading streams is the darling bird of the
Rockies, the cheerful water-ouzel. Here, too, the hermit thrush charms
the air with a wonderful wealth of melody, and here the solitaire,
perhaps the most inspiring of all songsters, pours his divine melody
amid pines, crags, and the sounds of winds and falling waters.
Numerous trails wind through this region, and over these one may visit
Specimen Mountain, an old volcano, Fern and Odessa Lakes,--splendid
tree-bordered alpine tarns,--Wild Basin, Locke Vale, Wind River,
Glacier Gorge, and the summit of Long's Peak. The Flat-Top trail is
the greatest one; this touches a variety of scenes, crosses the
continental divide at twelve thousand feet, and connects Grand Lake
and Estes Park.
This splendid natural recreation-ground might well "be held for the
use of the people." It is close to the geographical centre of the
country, is easily accessible, has an excellent climate, and as a
National Park it would become a scenic resource of enormous and
exhaustless richness.
THE END
Index
Index
Allen's Park, 339.
Andrews Glacier, 343.
Arapahoe Glacier, 251, 255, 260, 261, 343.
Arapahoe Peak, 260.
Ash, seeds, 296.
Aspen, after a fire, 160.
Aspen Gulch, 13-15.
Avalanches. _See_ Rock avalanche, Snowslides.
Basswood, seeds, 300.
Bears, escaping from a forest fire, 143, 144;
a mother and cubs, 240.
Bears, black, two cubs and a forest fire, 144;
attacked by wasps, 180;
carrying pine cones, 301.
Bears, grizzly, and a forest fire, 144;
and roasted deer after the fire, 149, 150;
two pet cubs, 207-209;
the further history of Johnny, 209-219;
curiosity, 214;
agility, 215.
Beaver, the Moraine Colony, 19-46;
characteristics and usefulness, 19, 40, 41, 46, 47;
dams, 21, 31-34, 45, 53, 54;
houses, 21, 22, 31, 42, 44, 54;
felling trees, 21, 24, 25, 58-65;
harvest piles, 22, 41, 42, 56, 57, 65, 66;
coöperation, 22-24, 43, 44;
working by daylight, 23, 62;
play, 23;
transporting logs and branches, 23, 24, 54-62;
village destroyed by fire, 26, 27;
attacked by mountain lion, 28, 29, 35, 36;
attacked by coyote, 29, 30, 36;
journeying by water and by land, 30, 31;
migration from ruined village, 29-31;
raided by trappers, 31;
need of ponds, 34, 35;
house dynamited, 35;
young, 36, 37;
a migration witnessed, 38, 39;
aged beaver, 38, 39, 51, 52, 63-65;
explorations of old males, 39, 40;
the first conservationist, 40, 41;
making a new pond, 44, 45;
pitchy wood and dead wood avoided, 45, 46;
canals, 45, 56;
ford, 45, 52, 66;
the Spruce Tree Colony, 51-67;
tunnels, 53;
log slides, 54-56;
the Island Colony, 61, 62;
ready for winter, 66.
Beetles, depredations in forests, 174-181, 195.
Big Thompson River, 345.
Big tree, immune from insects, 173;
seeds, 299.
Bighorn. _See_ Sheep, mountain.
Birds, of Estes Park, 347.
Blizzard, 311-316.
Borers, depredations in forests, 182, 195.
Camp-bird. _See_ Jay, Rocky Mountain.
Camp-fires, as origins of forest fires, 152, 153, 155, 156.
Carpenter, Prof. L. G., on forests, 127.
Chapman, Frank M., 200.
Chasm Lake, 343.
Cherry, seed-sowing, 298, 299.
Chipmunk, 325.
Cimarron, 242.
Clouds, of mountain-tops, 80, 81;
a snow-cloud, 81-84.
Cocoanut, 302.
Conifers, seed-distribution, 297, 298.
Cottonwood, seeds, 296, 301.
Couple, elderly, in a log house, 110-112.
Court-House Rock, 242, 243.
Coyote, attacking beaver, 29, 30, 36;
fleeing from a forest-fire, 143;
after the fire, 149.
Deer, in a forest fire, 142, 143.
_Dendroctonus_, 196.
Dogs, story of a tramp dog, 93-105;
Scotch and the bear Johnny, 213;
Scotch in a mountain blizzard, 309-320.
Electrical storms, 85-88.
Elk, in a forest fire, 142.
Erosion, after forest fires, 165, 166;
by glaciers, 251;
a study of, 271, 272, 281-286.
Estes Park, glaciers in, 260, 338, 341-343;
attractions, 337, 338, 348;
forest fires, 339;
forests, 340, 341;
Long's Peak, 341-343;
lakes, 343, 344;
streams and cañons, 344, 345;
animal life, 346;
flowers, 346, 347;
birds, 347;
trails, 347.
Fern Lake, 347.
Fir, Douglas, 279.
Fires. _See_ Forest Fires.
Flat-Top, 341, 347.
Flowers, of Estes Park, 346, 347.
Foot, an injured, 233, 234, 241-243.
Forest fires, watching, 139-170;
varying speed of, 141, 142, 167;
wild animals in, 142-145;
rarely make a clean sweep, 145, 146;
dead trees burning after, 146, 147;
extent, 147;
destroy humus, 148, 149;
loss of animal life in, 149;
storm of ashes after a fire, 150, 151;
upbuilding after, 152;
origins of, 152, 153, 155, 156, 162, 163, 176;
methods of fighting, 152, 153, 163-165;
trees standing after, 154, 158;
geysers of flame, 158, 159, 169;
duration of, 161, 162;
protection against, 163-165;
erosion after, 165, 166;
explosions of rock caused by, 169, 170;
interrelation with destructive insects, 173, 174, 186;
wood preserved by, 187.
Forests, as wood-producers, 124;
as water-distributors, 124, 125;
other uses, 125;
as moderators of climate, 125, 126;
as windbreaks, 126;
delaying evaporation, 126-129;
necessary to agriculture, 127, 128;
as reservoirs, 128-130;
as regulators of stream-flow, 130;
as makers of soil, 131, 132;
as bird-shelters, 132, 133;
as sanitary agents, 133;
evils following destruction of, 134;
preëminent in promoting the general welfare, 134, 135;
insect enemies of, 173-189;
observations of a forested and a deforested region during
a rain, 267-287;
the forest floor, 273, 274.
Fort Garland, 112, 113, 118, 119.
Fungi, enemies of trees, 183, 184.
Fungus, false-tinder, 184.
Glacier Gorge, 341, 347.
Glaciers, work of, 247-250;
Muir and Henderson on, 250;
rate of movement, 251;
Arapahoe, 251, 255, 260, 261;
grinding and excavating powers, 251-253;
moraines, 253-255;
lakes made by, 253, 343;
strange freight, 255, 256;
mineral wealth, 256;
making soil, 257;
formation, 258, 259;
in the Rocky Mountains, 258, 260-263, 338, 341-343;
bergschlunds and crevasses, 260, 261;
pleasures of investigation, 263.
Grand Lake, 348.