Seeing the far West

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Foreword

THE five-year-old found her way to her father's desk, pushed aside the maps and manuscripts over which he had been poring, climbed to his knee, and said, ''Now tell me a story about Colorado."

The story was told, and the request that Colorado be pointed out on the map was complied with. Then she said, "Take me to Colorado some day!"

Another day the request was for a story about California. As before, the map was brought into play to satisfy childish curiosity, and the plea followed, "Take me to California some day. I want to see El Cap-i-tan. ' '

Day after day father and daughter went through with the program, and the ceremony was always completed by the confident assurance that some day they would see together the beauty spots of which they had been talking. Finally, when Colorado, California, Arizona, Washing-ton, Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and New Mexico had been represented in stories, there was the final assertion, "Some day we'll see them all, won't we I"

Every American should have that child's impartial interest in the natural wonders of the Far West and her determination to see not merely one or two of the states that present to the sightseer programs so varied and alluring. There will be time to have favorite spots for wandering when a general view has been taken of all the regions a bountiful Providence has so wonderfully endowed.

Having taken first the general view, there will be

FOREWORD

opportunity to specialize by making an exhaustive study of some particular aspect of the scenery of mountains or valleys, rivers or lakes, deserts or canyons. And what a field for specialization "Western scenery presents!

The traveler who follows in the wake of the discoverers of the scenic glories of the states from the Eockies to the Pacific will find that, while the railroads lead to many of the best known of these, there are many more that are at a distance from the steel highways. But those who find it impossible to leave the railways will be able to make many memorable trips. Still greater joy is reserved for those who make their way by the splendid highways that now gridiron the West, and the greatest joy of all awaits those who wander by pack train or on foot in difficult country, camping out in the mountains or on the plains, crossing mysterious deserts or delving into hidden canyons, climbing to inaccessible glaciers, or penetrating to meadow-like valleys that are tucked away in a setting of snow-clad mountains.

But take time enough! Don't think that a hurried trip across the Continent is sufficient, or that, by passing once through one of the states, vast as many a European nation, the section in question is really seen. One of the first guide-books prepared after the completion of the Union Pacific Eailroad gave an itinerary for sixty days. **I cannot tolerate the idea of less than sixty days," the author added. But if sixty days was a necessity then, how much more to-day when half a dozen transcontinental lines, many cross lines, and innumerable roads for the automobile have opened up points of interest not even dreamed of fifty years ago !

FOREWORD

Perhaps some reader may be inspired to make independent investigation that will bear fruit in disclosing some secret beauties still hidden in regions as yet not completely charted. For there are such regions in mountain and desert ; they are Avaiting for some one to come to them. That some one may be you !

More Americans need to wake up to the fact that in their own West is scenery that is beyond comparison. Travelers talk of the Fjords of Norway; but let them go to Hood's Canal or Lake Chelan in Washington, or to the lakes of Glacier National Park ! The Himalayas and the Andes are famous among mountaineers; but what of the Sierras, the Cascades, and the Eockies? These may not be so lofty, but they are as inspiring and as overwhelming. Adjectives are used exhaustively in describing the Selkirks of Canada ; but there are the tremendous precipices and glaciers of Northwestern Montana. Visitors take delight in the flowers that bloom high up in the Alps ; but where are flowerclad mountain meadows to compare with those of Colorado or California or Oregon or Washington? The Falls of the Zambesi in Africa are majestic ; but why lose sight of the great cascades of Wyoming and Idaho, of Washington and Oregon and California and Utah, some of these two and even three times as high as Niagara 1 It is not strange that travelers speak with admiration of the mountain highways of Europe, yet how many realize that in the Western States are roads that surpass even the superb highway on the Stelvio Pass? There are glorious rivers in Europe and Asia, but how many of these can be thought of with the Columbia? What has the Riviera to offer in scenery and climate that the Coast of Southern California cannot

FOREWORD

duplicate or surpass? WTien the lure of the desert is spoken of, why should we persist in thinking only of the Sahara or the plains of Tibet 1 In the West there are deserts as boundless and as attractive. Then there are the mighty forests of the Pacific Coast, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the Yosemite Valley and Yellowstone Park and Crater Lake, and how many other wonders that are unlike anything to be found elsewhere !

The author, while not slighting scenes already made delightfully familiar by many writers, has sought to give emphasis also to regions of which little has been said — among others, the great National Forests whose beauties were seen in the course of more than three thousand miles of travel far from railroads; the National Parks and Monuments, especially those opened in recent years, including Zion Canyon, that wonder of Southern Utah which, so far as the writer knows, but one recent volume has touched upon ; the deserts which silently and compellingly call to the traveler who hurries across them by train ; and the amazing lava-built regions of Central Oregon, east of the Cascades, which wiU be better known to Americans when there is a through railroad from Klamath Falls to the Columbia.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Mr. Charles Howard Shinn of North Fork, California, for invaluable help, as well as to Messrs. R. F. Hammatt, T. N. Lorenzen, T. M. Talbott, Norman G. Jacobson, A. G. Jackson, M. A. Benedict, and other genial officials of the United States Forestry Service for companionship on roads in mountain and forest.

John T. Faeis

Phiiadelphia, Apbil, 1920

Contents

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I. THE WALLS OF PARADISE 17

pike's peak and beyond

Chapter I The Walls Of Paradise Pike's Peak And Beyond

Nature reveals her deepest, grandest mooda Within its vast unpeopled solitudes; And when the pu-rple night's calm mists are drifting, A sense of the divinej about it broods.

And he who treads the lofty land alone. Will feel, while clouds are round him rent and bloAvn, Standing amid the dumb crags, skyward lifting, A little nearer God's celestial tirone.

— CUNTON SOOIXABD.

tcTT^LEASE don't speak! This is not for words, r"^ but for worship ! ' '

-*^ One who has the privilege of standing on the

summit of Pike's Peak, 14,109 feet above the sea, is apt to feel hearty sympathy with the hero of the novelist who thus quieted a garrulous companion. He seems to be on the roof of the world. In the clear atmosphere it is possible to see an area larger than all of Pennsylvania or New York or Illinois. On three sides are multitudes of snow-capped peaks, now crowded together, again widely separated, while to the east the eye reaches out to the endless plains of Kansas. There are canyons, river valleys, mountain passes, mining districts, upland valleys, all the way from the regions beyond Denver to the glorious mountains and meadows of San Luis Park. At 2 17 the observer's feet are the bare rocks, reaching down thousands of feet to timber line, where begins the Pike National Forest, * 'whose towering pines, from this altitude, seem like blades of grass. ' *

Near at hand is the lonely station of the United States Signal Sei^vice, whose observers, for a brief period, once thought they were to share their vigil with the astronomers in charge of the Bryden Fund Observatory, for which Harvard College was seeking a location. Gladly the observers received the explorers of the college as they reached the summit with their burros, laden with mysterious equipment. Curiously they watched the setting up of the gigantic telescope, a mere frame of timber with huge lens and eye-piece. Eagerly they waited for the result of the experiments, and sadly they heard the word that the conditions of the atmosphere were not favorable, that the search for a location must be continued elsewhere — a search that was not ended until the ideal site was found in 1891 at Arequipa, Peru.

Among the reasons for the astronomers^ rejection of the Pike 's Peak location were the frequent thunderstorms. But, while these storms seriously disturb the atmosphere, so that accurate observations of the heavens cannot be made, they are one of the attractions of the summit. At times they cause a wonderful display, so that the observers in the signal station have the pleasure of playing hide and seek with the elusive lightning and associating on intimate terms with "anemometer cups that look like circles of fire."

Those who come toward Pike's Peak from the East will agree that the mountain is as elusive as the lightning. They may think they have it almost under their 18 ■

SKIING IN THE KOCKY MOUNTAINS

THE WALLS OF PARADISE

hand, but they are disappointed in a manner that has become familiar to all who visit the clear, deceptive air of Colorado. From the car window the Peak seems to be close at hand even at La Junta, one hundred miles away, while from Colorado Springs one thinks it is only a step to the slopes that lead to the snowy crest, though the distance is still fifteen miles. Day after day the emigrants in their slow-moving wagons thought that the next day would surely enable them to ease their fever in the atmosphere of the cool mountain, and many of them must have felt like that disgusted one of their number who said, '^I don't believe Pike has any peak."

Those emigrants might have taken comfort from the fact that the first white man who has left a record of his visit to the neighborhood of Pike's Peak made the same mistake. On November 15, 1806, while leading his expedition for the mapping of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike first saw a great mountain that looked like a blue cloud. As he approached it, he marveled at its white sides, which seemed to be covered with snow or a white stone.

''Three cheers for the Mexican Mountains!" the men of the expedition shouted, while their leader noted that the mountains formed a natural boundary between Louisiana and New Mexico ; for at that time the mountain now known as Pike's Peak was just within the angle formed by the boundary line of Mexico as it turned north toward the Grrand River and east toward the plains. Indeed, the border was so close that Pike soon crossed it unwittingly and was led by Mexican soldiers to Santa Fe, and from there out of the country.

The day after catching sight of the snowy peak the expedition hurried on, sure that the goal would be readied before night. But they proceeded for four days more, each morning thinking that night would find them at the apparently receding mountain. Finally, after a pause on the present site of Pueblo, Pike thought that there would be ample time between one in the afternoon and sunset to reach the slopes of the Blue Mountain, as he called it. Two days later he was climbing Cheyenne Mountain, miles away from his goal, though he thought he had reached it. The night was passed in a cave near the summit. In the morning he wrote :

Arose hungry, thirsty, and extremely sore, from the unevenness of the rocks on which we had lain all night, but was amply compensated for our toil by the sublimity of the prospects below. The unbounded prairie was overhung with clouds, which appeared like the ocean in a storm, wave piled on wave, and foaming, whilst the sky over our heads was perfectly clear. Commenced our march up the mountain, and in about an hour arrived at the summit of the chain ; here we found the snow middle deep and discovered no sign of beast or bird inhabiting the region. The summit of the Grand Peak, which was entirely bare of vegetation, and covered with snow, now appeared at the distance of fifteen or sixteen miles from us, and as high as that we had ascended; it would have taken a whole day's march to have arrived at the base, when I believe no human being could have arrived at its summit.

A few days later Pike took the altitude of the peak. He called it 18,581 feet. Surely he could be excused for his error, in view of the fact that as late as 1836 government surveyors insisted, after visiting the Rocky Mountain region, that many of the peaks were at least 25,000 feet high, '* being exceeded only by the Himalayas."

THE WALLS OF PARADISE

The error of Pike in declaring that the peak that now bears his name could not be climbed, and in feeling that this did not really make much difference, since white men would never wish to dispute the Indians' claim to this sterile mountain district, persisted for many years. In 1836 Captain Bonneville, after speaking of the region as * ' an immense belt of rocky mountains and volcanic planes, several hundred miles in width," said that they ''must ever remain an irreclaimable wilderness, intervening between the abodes of civilization, and affording a last refuge to the Indian. ' ' He proposed to leave this rich country to ' ' roving tribes of hunters, living in huts or lodges, and following the migration of the game. ' ' There would be nothing there ' ' to tempt the cupidity of the white man. ' '

Only a little more than twelve years after Pike gave his opinion that the Blue Mountain could not be surmounted. Dr. Edmn F. James succeeded in reaching the summit, and in looking down on the wonderful panorama that repaid all the toil of the climb. He called the mountain James' Peak, but fortunately the name Pike's Peak was later given to it.

For many years there was nothing but a single trail for those who ventured to follow in the footsteps of James. Then came a better trail, up Euxton Creek. Few use the old trail to-day, but the joy in store for those who have the courage to try it is apt to be greater than that of any who toil up the carriage road, who ride up the cog railway, or who take the exhilarating ride up the double track motor highway first used in 1916.

Those who would use the most wonderful of all motor roads should start from Colorado Springs, ride up historic Ute Pass, and along the foaming Fountain Creek. At Cascade is the real beginning of the Pike's Peak Highway. From there the road rises 6694 feet in the eighteen miles to the sunmait.

Above Cascade were difficulties that engineers said could not be solved, but the road was successfully cut through the granite ledge, and, at a distance of fourteen miles from the beginning of the highway in Ute Pass, it reached the crest of the Rampart Range after what has been called a series of ten immense swings, forming two Ws, with two swings preceding and two following. Three miles farther on is the summit.

Who cares to dwell on details of the construction of the six bridges, whose floors are of steel beams and concrete, or to think of the solid masonry parapets, and the hundred and one other excellences of this marvel of road-making, while he can think instead of the awe-inspiring vision from the chief summit of a ridge which Nym Crinkle, a writer of a past generation, called the Walls of Paradise? From there, it has been said, ''more miles of mountain and plain may be seen than from any other point on the globe reached by automobile. ' ' There is the Sangre de Cristo range, and here are the Spanish Peaks. Over yonder is Leadville on its granite foundation. To the north lies Denver, with the great peaks of the Front Range. Down below are Colorado Springs and Manitou, looking like toy villages. Off to the south Pueblo holds the gaze an instant, while far beyond are those fertile plains which Washington Irving said would probably be inhabited in the future by a hybrid race made up of Indians and fugitives from justice. And far to the west are mountains from whose sides flow the rivers that have been

THE WALLS OF PARADISE

harnessed for the watering of lands which, but for them, would have become fit only for the habitation of the * 'wasting and uncivilized aborigines," who, Pike was sure, would possess them forever.

Only four or five hours are required for the journey from Colorado Springs to the summit from which all these things may be seen, and for the return trip to the foot of ''the Walls of Paradise." But into these hours on the uplands may be crowded joys that will be present through many years of life on the lower levels.

Chapter II Under The Walls Of Paradise In The Pike's Peak Region

ONE day in 1871, when some of those interested in the railroad from Denver to the region east of Pike's Peak were exploring in advance of the road builders, they came to a commanding site whose outlook to the west on the foothills and the great sentinel mountains, and to the southeast on the sloping plains, so impressed them that they decided they must have a town there. So they took the steps that led to the building of Colorado Springs, the city that stands at the gateway of what has been called the most marvelous range of scenery to be found in narrow compass in all the world. Dark canyons, yawning caves, graceful waterfalls, rugged mountain peaks, and towering cliffs are so abundant that the visitor is dazed by their number and overpowered by their magnificence.

Once Bayard Taylor, after gazing in rapt wonder at the prospect spread before him from a point close to the city, said:

In variety and harmony of form, in effect against the dark blue sky, in breadth and grandeur, I know of no external feature of the Alps which can be placed beside it. If you could take away the valley of the Rhone, and unite the Alps of Savoy with the Bernese Oberland, you might attain a tolerable idea of the Rocky Mountains. Nowhere distorted or grotesque, never monotonous, lovely in form and atmospheric effect, I may recall some mountain chains which equal, but none which surpass these.

UNDER THE WALLS OF PARADISE

From Ute Pass beautiful Fountain Creek flows to the plain where Colorado Springs has her seat, a plain almost as high above the sea as the summit of Mount Washington. From the broad streets there are inspiring views of the amphitheater of mountains that give mute invitation to a series of drives and explorations, and the traveler washes for weeks instead of days in this favored spot.

Until 1917 Colorado Springs shared with two other cities the wonders of her situation ''under the Walls of Paradise." During that year Colorado City became a part of Colorado Springs, and now Manitou only is left as a separate municipality. But it would be a mistake to permit the history of Colorado City to be forgotten. It is one of the oldest settlements in Colorado, having been laid out in 1859. At first the name was Oldto^vn. It was the earliest capital of the territory, and had the honor of receiving the state legislature before that body sought Golden and Denver.

Manitou lies near the entrance of Ute Pass, where the Indians had a trail that led into the heart of the mountains. Down this trail they came with their invalids, seeking the healing mineral springs, which, in gratitude to the Great Spirit, they called ''Manitou."

The great pillars of sandstone that provide an entrance to the Garden of the Gods are at some distance from Manitou. These curious pinnacles, one of which is three hundred feet high, while the other is three hundred and fifty feet, give a good introduction to the weird weathered rock forms of a region that may not be a garden, and certainly has in it nothing to remind the visitor of gods, yet has a fascination that cannot be withstood. Guides have taken it upon themselves to name the rocks of the garden, in accordance with their own interpretation of their likeness to animals and natural objects. But the visitor should feel that he has just as much right to give names to the forms according to his imagination. Differences of opinion will but add attraction to the visit. It may be that some one will think a certain rock is like a lion, while the very next visitor will be just as sure that it is a perfect likeness of a turkey. But what of that ? The Indians probably had altogether different names for the formations in the park, for this was one of the places which they delighted to visit.

Among other secrets of this wonderland known long ago to the Indians, but only in recent years to their white successors, were the caves on the heights far back of the Garden of the Gods. One of these is in Williams Canyon, while the other, the much more extensive Cave of the Winds, is on the forbidding face of the canyon's limestone cliffs. These caves are connected by a pleasing story. It is related that the pastor of a Colorado Springs church organized an exploring society among his boys. One day he led his charges toward a cave in Williams Canyon, then little known, of which they had heard. The owner, however, looked askance at the company. ' ' Very well, boys, let us find a cave of our own, ' * was the leader's comforting word. The surprising part of the story is that within an hour they found the way to the Cave of the Winds, word of whose extensive chambers and beautiful formation the boys carried back that night to their own comrades.

Williams Canyon, whose walls are frequently so close together that carriages cannot pass there, is but one of the numerous canyons converging at Manitou,

WILLIAMS CANON, NOIilll (Ji M\y

UNDER THE WALLS OF PARADISE

made accessible by the many marvelous roads that lead out of Colorado Springs to all parts of the park system of a city that has wisely made a playground of almost everything in sight.

Up one of the canyons reached from Manitou leads the Crystal Park auto road. By tremendous zigzags it climbs Sutherland Canyon, where Pike the explorer succeeded in outwitting pursuing Indians, up the rugged slope of Eagle Mountain, to a point under Cameron's Cone. Loops, hairpin turns, and a steel turntable help in the conquest of the mountain. The road affords views so different from those spread out before those who go to the summit of Pike's Peak that both trips are needed to complete the vision that waits for those who would persuade the Walls of Paradise to yield their secrets.

A third trip should be taken before the Pike 's Peak region is left behind. This is by the Cripple Creek Short Line, from Colorado Springs to the central town of the richest gold-producing region in the world. The air-line distance is less than twenty miles, but the train covers fifty miles in making a journey that justifies even such superlatives as ''the trip that bankrupts the English language." By twists and turns innumerable, by tunnels and bridges and steep inclines, by loops and bends and curves, by climbing ridges and by exploring ravines, the road conquers the labyrinth of the mountain barriers and reaches the land of gold.

The Cripple Creek road leads through a country that was the delight of Helen Hunt Jackson, the novelist. It crosses the head both of North Cheyenne Canyon and South Cheyenne Canyon, where she persisted in roaming, even though the sight of a woman in these mountain fastnesses startled those whom she encountered. She did not stop with startling men. Once, in this district, a camper's dog ran from her in terror. In vain she tried to coax the animal to approach her. "It's no use, ma'am," the owner explained; "you see, that dog's never seen a woman before."

The walls of these twin canyons, frequently very close together, are from a thousand to fifteen hundred feet high. In both canyons are numerous waterfalls. The Seven Falls of South Canyon and the Pillars of Hercules are notable features.

Immediately south of the twin canyons is Cheyenne Mountain, the peak which Pike succeeded in climbing when he thought he was on the way to the much higher peak to the north. Mrs. Jackson felt that Pike had chosen the better mountain; she knew Pike's Peak, but she took keener pleasure in climbing Cheyenne Mountain, declaring that the real glories of mountain scenery are independent of height.

On one of her trips to Cheyenne Mountain the novelist nature-lover was attracted by a grave of which she wrote :

It lies, with four pines guarding it closely, on a westward slope which holds the very last rays of the setting sun. We look up from it to the glorious snowtopped peaks which pierce the sky, and the way seems very short over which our friend has gone.

Her thoughts turned to that lonely grave on the mountainside when she was dying, and in response to her wish she was buried not far from the highest of the falls in South Cheyenne Canyon. Louise Chandler Moulton wrote of the request :

UNDER THE WALLS OF PARADISE

To Cheyenne Pass, she dying, whispered — Take me there, where the strong- sun will find Me in the morns, and in the silent nights The stars bend over me, as if aware Their friend is kindred with their fires who watched them long.

The roaring mountain birds will scream Above me, flying toward the light, unscared. Free things will trample round the lonely spot Where rests my heart, of old untamed as they, But quiet with Death's quietness at last.

Take me to Cheyenne Pass, and lay me there. Within the mountains ' steadfast heart ; and leave me Neighbored by the wild things and the clouds. And still in death beneath the deathless sky.

But the day came when it seemed best to move the grave to the cemetery on the plain below, for tourists persisted in their quest of souvenirs in the chosen spot. So the body lies within the shadow of the mountain and the canyon which she loved so well.

Chapter III Alluring Cities Of The Pioneers

IN Colorado events of the year 1870 are ancient history; stories of 1860 go back to primeval times ; and suspicion of a man's veracity is aroused if he has too much to say of such an improbable date as 1857. For the Keystone State of the Mountains has not yet passed a commonwealth's period of first youth.

To be sure, when Colorado desires to claim a place in the company of those gray-beard states whose first settlers took root within their borders in the days when the nation was young, it is always possible to point to Pueblo, with the statement that the name is a reminder of the Mexicans who had their houses of adobe there long before Pike sought his peak or Fremont took to pathfinding in the Eockies, and that Mormons settled there for a time in 1846. But the day of the coming of the first American townbuilders was then a long way off.

It is easy to reel off figures about the Pittsburgh of the West, which turns out more than half of the goods manufactured in all of Colorado, and has a factory pay-roll of two million dollars a month. But it is so much more picturesque to speak of the magnificent faith of the promoters of 1874 who sowed the East with a pamphlet declaring, ''There is but little doubt that at this point will stand the Great Central City of the Far West," and to note in passing that to-day's successors of these early boomers who were sure of the region's tremendous growth have inherited the ability to say large things of the city because they are perfectly conso vinced of their truth. And why should they not have vision when they need only lift their eyes to the west to see glorious mountain peaks that make the town's four thousand feet of altitude seem insignificant?

The men who laid the foundations of this Gateway to the West distinguished the site by approaching the upper portion of the famous Las Animas Land Grant, a relic of the days of Mexican rule, whose original owners boasted the picturesque names Charles Beaubien and Guadeloupe Miranda. In 1841 the governor of New Mexico gave to them more than twenty- six hundred square miles. By the Treaty of 1848 the United States agreed to respect the grant. An American, Lucien Maxwell, succeeded to the ownership by marrying one of Senor Beaubien 's six daughters, and by purchase of the rights of his five sisters-in-law and of Miranda. It is said that he paid to each of the ladies from three to six thousand dollars.