Lewis B. France

“ There is a beautiful picture to the right; a few miles away, down the mountain side, you catch a view of a little lake, bordered by a strip of level ground carpeted in gold; back of this grow the pines, reaching on and up to the summits of their homes, made dark and green; and away beyond, delicately toned by the ever-present gray mist, stands a lofty mountain range. The engineer is kindly and pauses here, that you may have a glimpse of the enchanting retreat, over the memory of which you may dream when you are back in the turmoil, and that will make you sigh for the coming summer. ”

“ At five o’clock that same day there was a tent pitched in a little valley upon Bear creek, thirty-five miles from home, with two pairs of blankets, a coffee pot, two tin cups and a frying pan; not a soul or a habitation within twenty miles of us; a beautiful mountain stream, clear as crystal, cold as ice, and teeming with trout. What would you have, 12 money? Why, bless your soul, money was at a discount; there were acres of it a little way off, only for the digging.
In those days fishing tackle was scarce, and a plum-bush pole and linen line were the best in the land. ”

“ He who goes up a mountain by trail may exult in a lesser degree than the first explorer. But all may not surmount unexplored mountains; many cannot do so even by trail. To him, then, who makes the happiness of conversion from the ills of this life possible to all, if only for an hour, great credit is due, and he may, with an easy conscience no doubt, exact toll for his achievement.
To the æsthetic it may seem like a sacrilege to disfigure a great mountain with a road; but a road for human needs is so slight a scratch here on the earth's surface that it does not mar the surroundings. ”

“ We jogged on, up hill and down, through timbered land and little meadows, by the sides of deep gorges and under huge cliffs, now in the sunlight and again through such dense forests of heavy firs that night seemed to have set in, until we reached the summit of the Pass, and looked beyond upon the massive and frowning Blue River range, riven in mighty fissures, its sharp peaks kissing the azure sky, its great gorges filled with the eternal snows, now rosy under the rays of the setting sun, and over all brooding a solemn stillness that bade the heart bow in humility and reverential awe. ”

“ Over and through the pines that sparsely cover the mountain side, and over beds of wild flowers that carpet the slope, we can, before this distance is accomplished, obtain a fair view of the valley of the Fountain, Cascade and Manitou, thence out on to the broad plains, rising blue and dim until they kiss the horizon. One does not look for valleys in the mountain tops, but a mountain top reached is still further surmounted, and the road winds through aspen glades and the air is freighted with the odor of pines. ”

“ His fly books were an aggravation, and his split bamboo a source of misery. The evening would give promise of crystal water on the morrow, and each morning brought with it a stream of thick, yellow fluid. A trout would no more rise in it than upon the heaven-kissing hills that gathered the cause of his tribulation about their cloud-compelling peaks. The fir-crowned hills and majestic cliffs had lost their charm, the grasshopper had become a burden, and there was no more music in the roily water than in the mosquito’s song. ”

“ Snow everywhere! The willows are dressed in gray and the pines are almost black; the purple haze of summer has changed into a veil of white and the shrub oaks are garmented in ragged coats of brown. No living thing, except the snow-birds, is in sight between me and the hills, piling tier upon tier to the summit of the range. It is not like looking back from the front seat in the pit upon a grand-opera night—the colors are all sober. Where the rugged cliffs are too precipitous for the snow to cling, I find Titanic jewels with white settings. ”

“ An immediate change from a three pound plum bush pole to an esthetic split bamboo rod of a few ounces would drive a man crazy. It would be like putting a delicately turned Kirby into the hands of a pot hunter of the stone age. As the Kirby would compare with a bone sharpened at the ends, and a hole in the middle for the raw hide line, so the little bamboo with the plum bush. No doubt the prehistoric angler and his descendant of the nineteenth century would look, if they could, each upon the implements of the other with curiosity and utter lack of faith. ”

“ Surely, for the first time, it is like a pleasant dream, and one almost forgets to take in the gorgeous, ever-changing panorama made up of pinnacles, pine-clad hills, towering cliffs and flashing stream. Soon the gorge widens into a cozy dell; to the right, a gentle grass-covered slope, with countless wild flowers woven into the pattern, and groups of young pines here and there, leads up to a tier of hills with rock-crowned summits. To the left is Cascade Cañon, sentineled by lofty cliffs, and from out its shady recesses comes tumbling the bright mountain stream that suggested the name. ”

“ I did not go supperless to bed, and I had some of the fish for breakfast. The diet was no novelty, but the flavor upon that occasion far surpassed that of any former experience, and no fish since has tasted so sweet as that first perch. The burnished silver tint had given way to an exquisite brown, delicate as the hue of an amber cloud painted by the evening rays of an autumn sun. Crisp, and with a fragrance to subdue the censorious palate of an epicure, he invited me to remove his dorsal, and lay bare in equal halves the firm, white meat ”

“ Where's the rifle—gimme the rifle!"
Not two hundred feet from us stood a magnificent doe, broadside on, and an easy shot for the veriest tyro that ever pulled trigger. Instead of bringing the rifle to bear or giving it to Mr. Miles, the Major waved his hat and shouted. The beauty ceased staring at us and bounded away gracefully toward the aspens on the right.
"What'n thunder!—Major! you do beat all, that's a fact. Did anybody ever see such a pretty shot!" exclaimed Joshua regretfully and with an expression of disgust. ”

“ But a new growth is springing up, as if it were the pleasure of the present to keep green the grand monument of the dead glacier.
On the narrow beach, with its background of new growth, smolder the dying embers of a camp-fire. My eyes follow the thin column of blue smoke that rises and wreathes itself among the tree-tops, and floats away to where desecration has stepped in. The suggestion of primitive life is dispelled by the ridge pole of a mean house obtruding itself above a depression in the moraine, and I know that this is but the best of a number of slab shanties. ”

“ The ride up the great gorge in the western slope to the top of the Saguache Range affords a grander pageant than that in descending. One experiences a sensation of quiet, while one is looking down upon a panorama that is drifting. As the sun touches only the highest peaks the magnificent cliffs and wooded mountain sides are in shadow, seem animate, and as if stealing away, phantom-like, into the deepening twilight below. ”

“ In August, 1868, I made acquaintance first with the pools and riffles in the vicinity of the old Brown and Stuart’s ranche. I clambered up and down the cañon for five or six miles east and west. The rush and the roar of the crystal waters made glorious music, and an hour’s fishing would send me laden back to camp. But for all the grand surroundings, the fresh air, the wild flowers and the trout, there was weariness of heart for her and me who made our camp on the margin of the then beautiful stream. ”

“ Along the upper margin figures would come and go as if the gods and their retinues were all abroad directing a magnificent display. And in one corner, by itself, there was plainly outlined a fleecy hood, into which I caught myself intently gazing, expecting to see the laughing eyes and face of a beautiful child. All this in tones of white and gray. But as the sun sank lower, veils of slanting mist appeared here and there, the apparently solid mass was being broken up, the summit was still white scroll-work, but below, the line of bronze had turned into a crimson shade, within an uneven apex ”

“ As we go on, the sharp ridge of Red Mountain comes into view, guarded on the east by a monster hill, which none of our ingenious explorers, so generous in giving names, have condescended to dignify with a title. Its broad base washed by the rushing torrent, its sides clothed in a mantle of living green away up to the sharp line which marks the limit of the timber growth, and yet on and up the eye glances over the granite, with its azure background, until the vast pile is diademed with a fleecy cloud. ”

“ The Major and I conclude to occupy the rear platform and encounter an elderly lady on a camp-stool in possession of the car door. She is here evidently with a view to the scenery. As we squeeze past, we are regaled with an odor of rose leaves, suggestive of old-fashioned bureaus with obstinate drawers, catnip tea and grandmotherly tenderness. The velocity of the railroad train is not to be compared to the speed with which the perfume flashes one back through the decades, to the hard times, and I detect a sigh from the Major as he seats himself upon the car step. ”

“ There is not the faintest indication of a breeze, and the iron tires of a heavy freight wagon, laboring slowly along, ring out like the music of tiny bells, close and smooth, as though the master of the baton were directing a legato movement. The driver walks by the side of his team, thrashing one hand against his shoulder and holding the lines with the other; the horses are half hidden in the steam of their own providing and are frosted even to their flanks. Thunder and Mars! but it is cold! and a cloud of cold air rushes into the car with me. ”

“ Why, it is worth a day’s journey to sit where I do now, under the shadow of a pine whose every sigh in the cool breeze is freighted with fragrance, and feast on the massively beautiful scenery. A foreground of a mile or two of meadow rich in green and gold; the beetling lava cliffs on the left, and the brown hills, studded with 76 great piles of granite, sloping gently down to the margins of the Grand. ”

“ There is a feeling of exultation as one enters and stands solitary in mid-stream and looks down the flashing current; the surging of the water, as it takes his limbs into its cool embrace, whispers a greeting of welcome; hid by the growth upon either side one feels no longer alone, the water-sprites are with him in loving communion and sympathy.
So standing and happily surrounded, I commissioned the gray hackle, at the end of my leader, to ascertain what might be lurking in the shade of the opposite bank, where the current was swift and the water four feet deep, at least. ”

“ I’m stopping with a friend, a genuine angler, whom I have seen walk in the wake of one of those threshing machines, with a rod light as a buggy whip, and with a twist of the wrist drop a fly upon the water thirty or fifty feet away, and as it settled gently down, as falls the snowflake upon the bosom of the stream, there would come a rush and struggle that denoted the fishing was really good to him who had achieved the art of casting a fly. ”

“ As I stand on the doorstep next morning and take a survey of the town, no longer to be called a camp, I conclude that it must have been named Granite because there is less of that rock here than anywhere else in the vicinity.
After breakfast, at which we taste our first trout of the season, we start on a six-mile ride over a splendid road to the lakes. Though we are fairly in the heart of the mountains the way may not be called mountainous; an exaggerated rolling prairie surrounded by magnificent peaks gives a better idea of the land. ”

“ The bright green of the growth contrasts with the time-stained hues of the great piles of rock, and these grow more wild as the eye follows up the defile. Then a white patch, the length of a man’s arm and the breadth of a hand, glistens in the rays of the morning sun, here inaudible, but there a roaring waterfall a hundred feet high.
The gorge widens and drifts away to the right and left, but reaching high, with irregular outlines traced against the blue sky; the tints of brown and gray and green intermingle in bountiful confusion, but never wearisome ”