Pine Ridge

“ Pine Ridge, a picturesque escarpment of the Great Plains, cuts across the N.W. corner of Nebraska from Wyoming into South Dakota. A ridge of low hills and bluffs, often precipitous, marked by buttes and deeply cut in places by canyons, it is the most striking surface feature of the state. The altitude in this region varies from 3500 to 5000 ft. ”

“ The pines which clothe their sides, the chenars and poplars in the valley, are all enormous when compared with their European cousins.
The view was most remarkable as we gained the crest of the ridge—a sea of white cloud came boiling up from the valley to the east, and, pouring over the saddle upon which we stood, gave only occasional glimpses of snow and pine and precipice above, or the glint of water in the rice-fields far below. ”

“ The route continues southward, skirting a rocky, pine-covered ridge that marks a divide from which some streams flow northward and others in a southwesterly direction. Here the terrain is marginal in character, resembling in some respects the lava formations of the Columbia Basin to the west and in others the Palouse country. ROSALIA, 34.7 m. (2,237 alt., 598 pop.) , in the narrow valley of Pine Creek, a self-sufficient modern town, is the marketing and servicing center for a prosperous farming area. ”

“ A ridge of yellow pine extends west of the mines, between the St. Francis and Maramec, and is more decidedly barren than the grounds covered with oak. All the open, elevated tracts, are clothed with herbage, which hides their flinty aspect, and gives the country a picturesque appearance. The minor slopes and ravines are often rendered almost impassable by hazel, vines, and other bramble, which appear to be indicative of a better, or rather a deeper soil. ”

“ Further north recognized Niobrara ridge, Dakota ridge and Triassic ridge to the west of R.R. In one place, rocks like Boulder Red Rocks – possibly a short resistant zone in the Jura, apparently the oaks are southern species pushing northward from New Mexico New Mexico, hence occupying dry positions, while the pine Pinuss, pushing out from the mountains seek more moist situations, but a little further south the pine Pinuss mingle with the oak Quercuss in dryer situations and also appear on rocky ridges, as at Boulder Boulder, Colorado. ”

“ Large areas are swampy, and pine forests predominate. Along its western margin runs a particularly sandy belt known as the Sand Hills or Pine Barrens, consisting of loose sand dunes partly covered with pine forests. To the west of this belt the land rises abruptly to the upland or Piedmont Plain, which rises gradually from an altitude of 500 feet at its eastern margin to 1000 feet in the extreme northwest. Here the Blue Ridge, whose crest forms the northwestern boundary, rises abruptly 2000 feet higher, Mount Pinnacle, the highest point in the State, being 3436 feet. ”

“ High above Lost Creek Valley towers a wilderness of pine. So dense is this growth that it masks the mountain whence it springs. Even when the Cumberland spurs, to the east, are gaunt and bare in the wintry wind, their deciduous forests denuded, their crags unveiled and grimly beetling, Pine Mountain remains a sombre, changeless mystery; its clifty heights are hidden, its chasms and abysses lurk unseen. Whether the skies are blue, or gray, the dark, austere line of its summit limits the horizon. It stands against the west like a barrier. ”

“ One of the very finest of the thousands I have enjoyed lies hidden in an extensive forest of the Two-leaved Pine, on the edge of the basin of the ancient Tuolumne Mer de Glace, about eight miles to the west of Mount Dana.
Imagine yourself at the Tuolumne Soda Springs on the bank of the river, a day's journey above Yosemite Valley. You set off northward through a forest that stretches away indefinitely before you, seemingly unbroken by openings of any kind. As soon as you are fairly into the woods, the gray mountain-peaks, with their snowy gorges and hollows, are lost to view. ”

“ Then he took the young child up to the mountain, built a cabin under the tamarack pines, and a pit for burning charcoal for the furnace fires.
No one could wish for a better place for a boy to grow up in than the slope of Pine Mountain. There was the drip of pine balm and a wind like wine, white water in the springs, and as much room for roaming as one desired. The charcoal-burner's son chose to go far, coming back with sheaves of strange bloom from the edge of snow banks on the high ridges, bright spar or peacock-painted ores, hatfuls of berries, or strings of shining trout. ”

“ In the million acre Black Hills Reserve of South Dakota, the easternmost of the great forest reserves, made for the sake of the farmers and miners, there are delightful, reviving sauntering-grounds in open parks of yellow pine, planted well apart, allowing plenty of sunshine to warm the ground. This tree is one of the most variable and most widely distributed of American pines. It grows sturdily on all kinds of soil and rocks, and, protected by a mail of thick bark, defies frost and fire and disease alike, daring every danger in firm, calm beauty and strength. ”

“ The lumber and trees talked of, are all in the narrow valley of the creek, and almost completely hid by its depth, so that looking around on the table-land, not a tree is to be seen. All that can be seen at a distance is the tops of the tallest trees, which look like bushes. Long Pine and Valentine are just the opposite in scenery.
The sand-hills seen about Long Pine, and all through this country, are of a clear, white sand. ”

“ On the way I skirted a grove of small pines, standing between the road and the edge of Cedar Creek ravine: dull, scrubby trees, like pitch-pines, but less bright in color; of the same kind as those amid which, on Cameron Hill and Lookout Mountain, in Tennessee, there had been so notable a gathering of warblers the year before. Pinus pungens, Table Mountain pine, I suppose they were, though it must be acknowledged that I was never at the pains to settle the point. Here at Natural Bridge I had found all such woods deserted day after day, till I had ceased to think them worth looking into. ”

“ Coming at last to the rim of the forest, you look out over the sea, where go lumber-laden ships to all the world. Close by the beach, dwarfed and distorted by winds of the ocean, and nourished by its fogs, north-coast pine (Pinus contorta) extends its prostrate forms over the cliffs and dunes of the shore, just as your first acquaintance, the white-bark pine, spreads over the dunes and ridges of the mountain. They are brothers of a noble race. ”

“ Some of the finest groves I have yet found are on the southern slopes of Lassen's Butte. There are also many charming companies on the head waters of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin, and, in general, the species is so far from being rare that you can scarcely fail to find groves of considerable extent in crossing the range, choose what pass you may. The Mountain Pine grows beside it, and more frequently the two-leaved species; but there are many beautiful groups, numbering 1000 individuals, or more, without a single intruder. ”

“ They only served to thicken and enrich the general wilderness. Trees of every age cover craggy ridges as well as the deep moraine-soiled slopes, and plant their magnificent shafts along every brookside and meadow. Bogs and meadows are rare or entirely wanting in the isolated groves north of Kings River; here there is a beautiful series of them lying on the broad top of the main dividing ridge, imbedded in the very heart of the mammoth woods as if for ornament, their smooth, plushy bosoms kept bright and fertile by streams and sunshine. ”

“ The Mountain Pine is first met on the upper margin of the fir zone, growing singly in a subdued, inconspicuous form, in what appear as chance situations, without making much impression on the general forest. Continuing up through the Two-leaved Pines in the same scattered growth, it begins to show its character, and at an elevation of about 10,000 feet attains its noblest development near the middle of the range, tossing its tough arms in the frosty air, welcoming storms and feeding on them, and reaching the grand old age of 1000 years. ”

“ It was nearer dawn than midnight when the tired team, which had been slowly creeping up the mountain road for hours, turned into the lane above the mill and waited for their owner to swing open the gate which barred the way to the private road leading through the oak pasture to Pine Tree Ranch and home. It was one of those matchless nights that come only in the mountains, when the world is flooded with a soft, silvery light and the great trees stand out transfigured against the sky, amid a silence profound and awe-inspiring. ”

“ An inlet runs up to a perfectly sheltered basin, navigable for small craft. Our second engineer had once been driven upon this island through stress of weather, and going ashore, he found a fine lake of fresh water, with unlimited fishing and shooting privileges for whomsoever chose to claim them. Two or three European settlers vegetate in calm contentment in this ideal island-pastoral solitude.
Pine island is the name of the adjacent small territory, and is so called from the immense quantity of white-stemmed pine, growing right up to the summit of the highest hills, which it contains. ”

“ She was in a panorama stage-scene; things moved steadily by her, there was a sound of the engine, and a sensation of steering, but she was forever in the same place, among the same pines, with the same scowling blackness between their bare clean trunks. Only the road ahead was clear: a one-way track, the foot-high earthy bank and the pine-roots beside it, two distinct ruts, and a roughening of strewn brown bark and pine-needles, which, in the beating light of the car's lamps, made the sandy road scabrous with little incessant shadows. ”

“ On level rocks it dies standing, and wastes insensibly out of existence like granite, the wind exerting about as little control over it alive or dead as it does over a glacier boulder. Some are undoubtedly over 2000 years old. All the trees of the alpine woods suffer, more or less, from avalanches, the Two-leaved Pine most of all. Gaps two or three hundred yards wide, extending from the upper limit of the tree-line to the bottoms of valleys and lake basins, are of common occurrence in all the upper forests, resembling the clearings of settlers in the old backwoods. ”

“ If one were drunk no doubt, the road would be straight. But thirty-five or forty miles from Denver the cañon grows familiar. Buffalo Creek comes tumbling out from the south, and presently the brakeman puts his head in at the door and shouts: “Pine Grove!” This is the Pine Grove known to travelers who go by rail, but the Pine Grove of twenty odd years ago was six 100 miles away from the river, and the railroad Pine Grove was Brown and Stuart’s ranche, the owners of which drove a thrifty traffic in hay. ”

“ Nothing can be more cheerful in scenery than the occasional groups of Pines which have come up spontaneously on the bald hills near our coast, elsewhere a dreary waste of gray rocks, stunted shrubbery, and prostrate Juniper. In the forest the White Pine constitutes the very sanctuary of Nature, its tall pillars extending into the clouds, and its broad canopy of foliage mixing with the vapors that descend in the storm. ”

“ Deer, also, dwell here, and find food and shelter in the ceanothus tangles, with a multitude of smaller people. Above this region of giants, the trees grow smaller until the utmost limit of the timber line is reached on the stormy mountain-slopes at a height of from ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea, where the Dwarf Pine is so lowly and hard beset by storms and heavy snow, it is pressed into flat tangles, over the tops of which we may easily walk. Below the main forest belt the trees likewise diminish in size, frost and burning drought repressing and blasting alike. ”

“ The wonderful “palo Colorado” of California is another giant of the pine tribe. It also grows above three hundred feet high, with a diameter of sixteen feet! Then there is the “red pine,” of eighty feet high, much used for the decks and masts of ships; the “pitch-pine” (Pinus rigida) , a smaller tree, esteemed for its fuel, and furnishing most of the firewood used in some of the American cities. From this species the strong burning “knots” are obtained. There is the “white pine” (Pinus strobus) , valuable for its timber. ”

“ Furthermore, at that period, a great deal of talk was believed as to the inexhaustibility of Michigan pine. Men in a position to know what they were talking about stated dogmatically that the forests of the southern peninsula would be adequate for a great many years to come. Furthermore, the magnificent timber of the Saginaw, Muskegon, and Grand River valleys in the southern peninsula occupied entire attention. No one cared to bother about property at so great a distance from home. ”

“ Notable camping-place for Indians, half-breeds and white travellers was the Lone Pine. It stood like a monarch raising its head over a wide, unsurveyed territory—no other tree to keep it company or break the flat monotony of the sea of grass surrounding it on every side. ”

“ Out of the same spirit of mocking humour which gave the name of Boland's Ait to the little island in the canal, these solitary ways are called the Pine Groves. The pine-wood which gives them their name has ceased to be a landscape ornament many years, and now stands upright about ten feet high on either side of the roads, in the form of tarred planks.
There are miles of this monotonous black fencing, with no house or gate to break the depressing sameness. By day the Pine Groves are busy with the rumble of heavy traffic from the docks and wharves ”