The greater part of the Park lies above the alt.i.tude of nine thousand feet. Its southeast corner is within forty miles of Denver; the northeast corner about the same distance from Cheyenne. A number of railroads run close to it, and the Lincoln Highway is about twenty miles away. The Park is only thirty hours from Chicago, and its accessibility adds to its invitingness as a playground.
Side by side in it are two dominating peaks. These are Long"s Peak, 14,255 feet high, and Mount Meeker, 14,000 feet above the sea. These great summits were a landmark for the primitive red man who saw them from the plains. For generations the plains Indians spoke of them as the "Two Guides."
Viewed as a whole from a neighboring mountain-top, either on the eastern or the western side, the Park presents an imposing appearance.
My favorite near-by view-point is the summit of the Twin Sister Peaks.
In commenting on the appearance of the eastern slope Dr. Ferdinand V.
Hayden, the celebrated geologist, wrote as follows:--
Not only has Nature amply supplied this with features of rare beauty and surroundings of admirable grandeur, but it has thus distributed them that the eye of an artist may rest with perfect satisfaction on the complete picture represented. It may be said, perhaps, that the more minute details of the scenery are too decorative in their character, showing, as they do, the irregular picturesque groups of hills, b.u.t.tes, products of erosion, and the finely moulded ridges--the effect is pleasing in the extreme.
Mountain-climbers will find a number of towering view-points. Long"s Peak is the superior one, and the most dominating single feature in the Park. It is a mountain of striking individuality and peculiar ruggedness, though not extremely difficult to climb. Standing a little apart from numbers of other peaks, it is placed so as to command rugged near-by views as well as wonderful far-reaching vistas that vanish in the light and shadow of distance. Among the other peaks that climbers would do well to stand upon are Mount Meeker, Hague"s Peak, and Specimen Mountain. Among the lower peaks that command magnificent scenes, I would name Meadow Mountain, at the southern end of the Park, as one of the best. Among other excellent views are those from Flat-Top Mountain, Gem Lake, Echo Mountain, near Grand Lake, and a number of places along the summit of Trail Ridge.
The topography of the Park is one big glacial story, which in places is of unusual interest. This fascinating story left by the Ice King is for the most part well preserved and forms one of the Park"s chief attractions. Nowhere in America are glacial records of such prominence more numerous, accessible, and easily read.
A few small glaciers remain--one on the eastern slope of Long"s Peak, and Andrews, Sprague"s, and Hallet Glaciers in the north half of the eastern slope. These glaciers are mere remnants, but none the less interesting.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOCH VALE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK]
Altogether there are more than one hundred lakes and tarns in the Park. Most of these are small, but each has its peculiarly attractive setting. With few exceptions, these lakes repose in basins of solid rock that were excavated for them by glacial action. In the Park are also many stupendous moraines.
Each year more than a thousand varieties of wild blossoms give color and charm to this favored spot. They are to be counted among the four chief attractions, the other three being Long"s Peak, the glaciation, and the timber-line. Of the brilliantly colored wild flowers many take on large and vigorous form, while in the alpine moorlands numerous species are dwarfed and low-growing. A few bright blossoms jewel the summits of the highest peaks. Flowers grow wherever there is a bit of soil for them to live in.
On the summit of Long"s Peak, nearly three miles up, in a number of places I have seen bright primroses and polemonium, blue mertensia and lavender-colored phlox. There are ragged wild gardens of alpine flowers nearly thirteen thousand feet above the sea. More than one hundred varieties of flowers brighten the ledges of the cliffs, fringe the snow-piles, and color the moorlands of the heights above the limits of tree growth. The alpine blooms that live in dry or wind-swept places are dwarfed and flattened. They keep their beauty close to the earth. Many of these little flowering people are so greatly dwarfed that the plant with its leaf and blossom does not rise a quarter of an inch above the earth. Among these are the phlox, harebell, and the columbine.
The Mariposa lily"s, perhaps, is the most cla.s.sic petal in the Park.
Among its conspicuous neighbors are the fringed gentian, the silver-and-blue columbine, the elaborate calypso orchid, and the graceful harebell. Among the other abundant and beautiful blossoms are violets, daisies, asters, black-eyed Susans, paint-brushes, rock-roses, pasque-flowers, which Helen Hunt called Maltese kittens, tiger lilies, golden pond-lilies, and anemones. Many of these flowers are perfectly formed and carry petals of cleanest, deepest color.
There are many kinds of wild life in the Park. Mountain sheep probably number several hundreds. Elk are increasing in number; so, too, are deer, which are already common. There are a number of black bears, possibly a few remaining grizzlies, and a few foxes, wolves, lions, and coyotes. The beaver population is numerous, and in many places are extensive beaver colonies with dams, ponds, and houses.
Among about one hundred and fifty species of birds are found a few golden eagles. These nest in the heights. The rose-finch and the ptarmigan live the year round near the snow-line above the limits of tree growth. Among the common birds most frequently seen are the robin, bluebird, blackbird, hummingbird, pine siskin, goldfinch, magpie, white-crowned sparrow, house wren, and Rocky Mountain jay.
During the flower-filled, sun-flooded days of June, while the evening shadows are crossing the openings, the song of the hermit thrush is often heard, its beautiful silvery notes mingling strangely with the wild surroundings. In June, too, the ever-cheerful water-ouzel carols most intensely by his chosen home along the alpine streams. Likewise in this month the marvelous solitaire sings among the crags far up the slopes, close to where the forest ends and the alpine moorlands begin.
Here are primeval forests, torn by canons and pierced by crags and rock ridges. Among the more common trees are the lodge-pole pine and the Engelmann spruce. Other species are the alpine fir, Douglas spruce, limber pine, and Western yellow pine. The aspen is found in groves, groups, and scattered growths in the moister places all over the woodland.
The timber-line in the Park is one of the most picturesque and interesting in the world. It is strangely appealing and thought-compelling. This is the forest-frontier. Its average alt.i.tude is about eleven thousand five hundred feet above the sea. Timber-line in the Alps is only about sixty-five hundred feet. Thus it will be seen that the climate of this Rocky Mountain section is far more friendly to wood growth than that of the Alps.
The trees persistently try to climb upward, and their struggle for existence becomes deadly. The wind blows off their arms, and cuts them with flying sand. The cold dwarfs them, and for nine months in the year the snow tries to twist and crush the life out of them. Many have limbs and bark on one side only; others are completely stripped of bark. They seldom grow over eight feet high, and numbers grow along the ground like vines. In the drier places at timber-line the limber pine has sole possession, while in the moister places the Engelmann spruce predominates, and is sometimes accompanied by dwarfed aspen, birch, subalpine fir, and willow. Above the timber-line are crags, snow-piles, and alpine-flower meadows.
Traveling along the eastern slope of the Park, one encounters a number of prominent attractions.
In the south, Wild Basin, a splendidly glaciated realm of several square miles, almost completely surrounded with high peaks, contains lakes, forests, moraines, and gorges. It retains many wild glacial records of peculiar interest. North of it is the Long"s Peak group, consisting of Long"s Peak, Mount Meeker, Mount Lady Washington, Chasm Lake and Gorge, and Mills Moraine. This moraine is one of the most interesting in the park. Chasm Lake, at the foot of the precipitous eastern slope of Long"s Peak, has the wildest setting of all the many Park lakes.
To the east of Long"s Peak lies Tahosa Valley, and just beyond this rise the Twin Sister Peaks. Between Long"s Peak and the Range is Glacier Gorge, a deep glaciated canon. At the end of this, in the Continental Divide, is the Loch Vale region. Here the terraced floor is varied with tarns, waterfalls, flowery meadows, gra.s.sy s.p.a.ces, and storm-battered trees. Around it and rising above it are stupendous cliffs and precipices of glaciated rock. Above it to the west is Andrews Glacier. Eastward from it lies the Bierstadt Moraine, named after Albert Bierstadt, whose pictures gave fame to the region. A trail crosses the Continental Divide from Flat-Top Mountain, which is approximately in the center of the Park.
To the north of Flat-Top Mountain lie Fern and Odessa Lakes. They are the best-known and most popular lakes in the Park, but there are a number of others of somewhat similar character and with equally scenic surroundings. Beyond these is Sprague"s Glacier; also Forest Canon, above which extends the scene-commanding Trail Ridge. Again beyond, the Fall River automobile road crosses the Continental Divide.
In the northeast corner of the Park lies the Mummy Range, the highest peak being Hague"s. On its northern slope is Hallet Glacier. A bill now (1917) before Congress provides that Deer Mountain, Gem Lake, and the Twin Sister Peaks be added to the Park.[1]
[1] This bill pa.s.sed after the above was in type. See map of the Park.
On the western slope, at the south end, is a combination of lovely and magnificent scenes. The great feature on the west side is Grand Lake, the largest lake in Colorado. It is the source of the Grand River, and furnishes a part of the water that roars through the Grand Canon of the Colorado in Arizona. The North Inlet and the East Inlet are scenic gorges through which streams rush from the heights down into Grand Lake. The East Inlet region, between Shoshone Peak and Grand Lake, has a remarkable glacial story of its own.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FERN LAKE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK]
In the northwest corner of the Park stands Specimen Mountain, an excellent view-point. This is probably a sleeping volcano. It is the most famous mountain-sheep range in the Park. Its gra.s.sy slopes and summit contain s.p.a.ces of salty ooze that attracts them. Many times I have seen a flock of one hundred or more in the crater.
IX
THE GRAND CAnON
John Muir strongly urged that a National Park be made of the Grand Canon of the Colorado. In commenting on this t.i.tan of canons, he said:--
No matter how far you have wandered hitherto, or how many famous valleys and gorges you have seen, this one, the Grand Canon of the Colorado, will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in the color and grandeur and quant.i.ty of its architecture, as if you had found it after death, on some other star; so incomparably lovely and grand and supreme is it above all the other canons.
It is hoped that Congress will early create a Grand Canon National Park. The territory most seriously considered embraces a hundred-mile stretch of the canon with a narrow bit of each rim. This would extend about fifty miles up and an equal distance down the river from Grand Canon Station. It would thus include only about half the length of the Grand Canon, and no part of any other canon. I should like to see it extended another hundred miles up the river. It would then embrace not less than two hundred miles of the river, and would include Marble Canon and a part of Glen Canon. But, whatever its length, it should include a broad forest border all the way, on both rims of the canon.
To enable the public to see this t.i.tanic gorge in the most comfortable manner and from the best points of view, it is necessary to have more public roads and trails. There is great need that this unmatched wonder have National Park protection and development. At present the main trail to the bottom of the canon is a private toll trail!
Visitors to almost any great scene are wont to compare it with some other scene; it reminds them of this place or that place. But when one first views Crater Lake, or while one is in the presence of the Big Trees for the first time, memory is suspended; and when one first beholds the Grand Canon, it does not remind him of this or that--it completely possesses the observer, sweeps other scenes and places out of mind. Presently comes desire for a thousandfold capacity of feeling and comprehension. The thing is too vast and splendid for ordinary faculties.
I have boated in many of the canons of the Colorado and have camped and tramped along their rims. Often I have looked down into them when they were filled with mists; when broken clouds hung over them; when sunshine or moonlight illumined their depths, from which I have looked forth under like conditions. But to me, whether in summer or when snow piles the rim, the Grand Canon never loses its intense impressiveness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOKING WEST FROM NORTH SIDE OF GRAND CAnON Point Sublime to right in distance. Isis Temple on left.
_By permission of the National Park Service, Department of the Interior_]
The Walhalla Plateau is an extraordinary canon view-point and is likely to become one of the most famous places on the earth. This narrow plateau thrusts ten miles out into the vast, deep, airy Grand Canon. It extends from the north rim, between Bright Angel Canon and the inside bend of the main canon opposite the Canon of the Little Colorado. A most commanding peninsula it is, with wide and enormous depths sweeping almost entirely around it. Other commanding view-points on the north rim are Point Sublime and Bright Angel Point.
Three excellent view-points on the south rim are Grand View, Hopi Point, and the El Tovar. Grand View is a few miles up the river from the El Tovar Hotel, and opposite Cape Royal of the Walhalla Plateau.
The Colorado River in Arizona flows through a series of twenty vast canons that have a length of about one thousand miles. Most of them are end to end with only a mere break between. Of these, the Grand Canon is the canon of canons. Counting downstream, it is the eighteenth of the series; counting upstream, the third. The canon is from seven to fifteen miles wide, and from four thousand to six thousand feet deep. It is an enormous gulf two hundred miles long, in solid rock. Less than one thousand feet across at the bottom, and eight to ten miles across at the top, it may be called a rough V-shaped gorge; or, together with its tributary canons, it might be called an inverted hollow mountain-range. This range, if turned out upon the plateau, would measure in places more than two hundred miles in length and nearly forty miles in width, with summits rising nearly seven thousand feet; and it would be diversified with ridges, gorges, plateaus, spurs, and peaks.
The Grand Canon of the Colorado is a masterpiece of erosion--a wonderful story carved in rock. It was excavated and washed out by the river. It is not an ordinary mountain canon, for it lies in a comparatively level plain or plateau. During the ages, the debris-laden water sliding over its inclined bed of solid rock dug, sawed, and cut the canon to the bottom. The river not only carried away all the material worn from the bottom, but the thousandfold more that tumbled into it from the ever-caving walls.
Here is color in magnificent array. Most of the strata are perfectly horizontal and of great thickness, and each has an individual color.
Many of the walls are brown or red, and there are strata of gray, yellow, grayish brown, and grayish green. All these are ma.s.sed and arranged in vast and broken color pictures and landscapes, some of which are a mile high and several miles in length.
The top, or rim, of the canon is in an extensive arid region. Water is extremely scarce; in a number of places not a drop is available within miles. If a boatman is wrecked in the canon, he has little opportunity of escaping. If he should manage to climb out on the desolate, almost uninhabited plateau, he would be likely to perish for lack of water.
The canon has a climate of its own. In the bottom, the temperature frequently shows a range of one hundred degrees inside of twenty-four hours. Its great depth and peculiar wall exposure give it a climatic variety. The walls that face the north are much cooler than those facing the south. The temperature at the top differs from that at the bottom, and midway on the walls is a temperature distinct from either of the others. On the rim at El Tovar it may be a winter day; you descend to the river and there find a mild climate, with birds singing and flowers in bloom. The six thousand feet of descent to the river gives a climatic change that approximates a southern journey of two thousand miles. This plateau is forested and on the northern rim of the canon the tree-growth is heavy.
Flowers bloom in the canon every month in the year. In the niches and on the terraces are the columbine, lupine, stonecrop, kinnikinnick, dandelion, thistle, and paintbrush. Sagebrush and greasewood occur in many places. The Douglas spruce is found upon the southern wall, the cottonwood and willow in the bottom. Beavers, a few deer, many rabbits, wildcats, and wolves are found in a few places in the bottom of the canon, and sheep and lions upon the terraces. But the larger part of the unbroken and terraced walls is barren and lifeless.
Among the birds that gladden this gorge are the mockingbird, pinon jay, robin, quail, hummingbird, kingfisher, swallow, and owl. Here, too, you will hear that melodious and hopeful singer the canon wren.