Rock Creek

“ The adjacent hills furnished abundance of deer, and even bear, and the famous catches of trout perpetuated the glory of a summer on Rock Creek as a lifelong realistic dream. The most elaborate of Indian trappings adorned the various abodes. Canoes silently sped along the surface of an artificial lake made by repairing an old beaver dam, and in the corral Ute ponies, Mexican burros or American-bred saddle horses, besides traps, brakes and coaches presented a never-tiring array from which to select in order to make pilgrimages into more distant territory. ”

“ This Rock Creek was named during the days of the mining excitement of the '60s. There is a community area about six miles west of Haines that goes by the name Rock Creek. A post office was established in this locality shortly after the turn of the century, with Edward P. Castor postmaster, but available information about its life history is meager. The compiler finds it listed as Rockcreek in the Postal Guide as of December 1, 1903, but elsewhere the style Rock Creek is used. The office doubtless gave way to rural free delivery. Rock CREEK, Gilliam County. ”

“ A warm spring branch empties itself into the river at this place. Emigrants would pursue a more proper course by encamping on the bottom, near the source of Rock creek, then drive down to where the road crosses in a kanyon, then following the road for eight or nine miles to where the road leaves the bluff of the creek and encamp, driving their cattle into the creek bottom. ”

“ He perches upon the fences and upon the trees by the roadside, and, spreading his tail, gives forth his harsh strain, which may be roughly worded thus: fscp fscp, fee fee fee. Like all sounds associated with early summer, it soon has a charm to the ear quite independent of its intrinsic merits.
Outside of the city limits, the great point of interest to the rambler and lover of nature is the Rock Creek region. Rock Creek is a large, rough, rapid stream, which has its source in the interior of Maryland, and flows in to the Potomac between Washington and Georgetown. ”

“ Even here, it deserves the name of Rock creek, which we gave to it. We succeeded in fording it, and toiled about three thousand feet up the opposite hill. The mountains now were getting sensibly lower; but still there is no valley on the river, which presents steep and rocky banks; but here, several miles from the river, the country is smooth and grassy; the forest has no undergrowth; and in the open valleys of rivulets, or around spring-heads, the low groves of live-oak give the appearance of orchards in an old cultivated country. ”

“ For want of water we marched 20 miles without rest, to Rock creek. About eight miles from Rabbit ear creek a mountain rises in the prairie, nearly one mile south of the road–the so-called Round mound. I ascended it, and by barometrical measurement found the difference between the foot and the top of the mountain to be 610 feet, or its absolute elevation above the sea 6,655 feet. So rapid has been our ascent since we left the Cimarron. On the top of the mountain grow cedars. The rocks composing it appear to be basaltic, in a state of decomposition ”

“ Keeping in the vicinity of a small stream called Rock Creek, which courses its way among the bluffs, we traveled several days, keenly watching for anything that looked like meat. We never became careless, however, and the fire was always deadened before dark, while the wagon was placed upon some high spot for the night, in order to avoid the treachery that might be lurking behind the hills.
Breaking our way through the soft, deep sand, we were compelled to travel very slowly. Sight{52}ing a single buffalo, upon one occasion, we fully expected to find a great herd behind every hill. ”

“ More people visited Rock Creek Park here in the city of Washington last Sunday afternoon than went to the Yosemite all last summer. The country has endless woods and mountains which cost the Treasury nothing. ”

“ Diamond Spring, Rock Creek, Elder Grove, and other camping places besides, were passed all in quick succession. At Rock Creek we found a train of government provision wagons, under the charge of an emaciated old man in his seventy-first year. Some restless American devil had driven him into the wilderness at a time when he should have been seated at his fireside with his grandchildren on his knees. ”

“ For the most part it keeps in sight of Tarryall Creek, one of the large affluents of the Platte, and is walled in on both sides by mountains, which are sometimes so close together as to leave only the narrowest canyon between them, at others breaking wide apart, till, after winding and climbing up and down for twenty- five miles, it lands one on a barren rock-girdled park, watered by a rapid fordable stream as broad as the Ouse at Huntingdon, snow-fed and ice-fringed, the park bordered by fantastic rocky hills, snow-covered and brightened only by a dwarf growth of the beautiful silver spruce. ”

“ From timber line on the eastern slope of the great Atlantico-Pacifico water shed, winding around Gray's Peak, serpentinely descending to the Frazier River through Middle Park to our cabin site on Rock Creek one hundred and fifty miles, is one unbroken cheerless blanket of snow, covering irregular sage brush grown mesas sloping to the river banks, along whose sides grow stretches of heavy, coarse grass suitable for wintering hardy, range-grown stock. Cultivation of any of the land is still an unsolved problem. ”

“ The scouts and hunters whom we always kept out, report that they have seen fresh tracks of Indians. The next morning we left our camp, which was on the south side, opposite to a large island in the middle of the river, and at five miles reached a creek on the north side, of about twenty yards wide, called Split Rock creek, from a fissure in the point of a neighbouring rock. Three miles beyond this, on the south is Saline river, it is about thirty yards wide, and has its name from the number of salt licks, and springs, which render its water brackish ”

“ At the end of 8 miles, we came to Rock Creek, and 7 miles further we arrived at Diamond Spring, where we halted for the night.
31st.—This morning I filled my canteen with the refreshing water of Diamond Spring. At the spring I counted 45 wagons loaded with provisions for the army. Yesterday we entered upon the far-famed plains at Rock Creek. The scenery presents a dull monotony, a vast plain, almost level, bounded by the horizon and covered with a thin sward and herbage. ”

“ I play tennis in the late afternoons unless I go to ride with Mother.
ON THE EVE OF ELECTION
White House, Oct. 15, 1904.
DARLING KERMIT:
The weather has been beautiful the last week—mild, and yet with the true feeling of Fall in the air. When Mother and I have ridden up Rock Creek through the country round about, it has been a perpetual delight just to look at the foliage. I have never seen leaves turn more beautifully. The Virginia creepers and some of the maple and gum trees are scarlet and crimson. The oaks are deep red brown. ”

“ Just below the mound, and near the grove, is a rapid stream of water, coursing over a rocky bottom, formed by soda. At the crossing of this creek, and below the road, is a morass; and immediately on the bank of the rivulet, is a crevice in the rock, from which a small stream of water issues; this was the best to drink of any I found. After crossing the creek, the distance to the springs generally resorted to is about three-fourths of a mile; they boil up in every direction. ”

“ Fort Hall, 75 American 18 Falls, Raft creek, 23 Big Spring, 16 Snake River, 10 Goos Creek, 4 Snake River, 23 Dry Fork, 7 Cut Rock Creek, 12 Cut Rock Creek, 10 Cut Rock Creek, 12 Snake River, 15 Snake River, 8 Salmon Creek, 5 Salmon Falls, 5 Crossing, 27 Boise River, 80 Ft. Boise 50 1281 1229 1322 1338 1348 1352 1375 1382 1394 1404 1416 1431 1439 1444 1449 1476 1556 distance, the trail runs down the valley of the stream, which is mostly covered with excellent grass. Wood is scarce. At the Soda Springs, wood and grass are abundant. ”

“ The back country rose into sandstone hills covered with triodia; but there were good grassy flats on the bank of the creek. The creek then entered a rocky gorge about 100 yards wide, with cliffs upward of 100 feet high on each side. With some difficulty we forced our way through the dense growth of reeds and brush, among huge masses of rock and deep pools of water, till 10.10, when we reached a more open part of the valley. The creek now turned to east-north-east, and the wide valley was bounded by low schist hills to the north and the sandstone range we had just passed to the south ”

“ The stream had here entered nearly a level plain or valley, of good soil, eight or ten miles broad, to which no termination was to be seen, and lying between ranges of mountains which, on the right, were grassy and smooth, unbroken by rock, and lower than on the left, where they were rocky and bald, increasing in height to the southward. On the creek were fringes of young willows, older trees being rarely found on the plains, where the Indians burn the surface to produce better grass. ”

“ Indians have been hauling rock all winter for the dam. The canal, when completed, will be ten or fifteen miles long and will irrigate about 5,000 acres of the Milk river valley lands south of the river. These lands will grow excellent crops of grain and hay.
“A new enterprise that will be commenced this summer (1899) is a big reservoir on Warm Springs creek in the Little Rockies. This reservoir will cover 160 acres of land and will have an average depth of eighteen feet. It is designed to furnish a supply of water for irrigating purposes in the southern part of the reservation. ”

“ It then crosses Hard-ware, above the mouth of Hudson's creek, James River at the mouth of Rockfish, at the marble quarry before spoken of, probably runs up the river to where it appears again at Ross's iron-works, and so passes off southwestwardly by Flat creek of Otter river. It is never more than one hundred yards wide. From the Blue ridge westwardly, the whole country seems to be founded on a rock of lime-stone, besides infinite quantities on the surface, both loose and fixed. ”

“ After a time they drew out from the shadow of the pines into the clearing at Rockerville, where the hydraulic "giants" had eaten away the hill-sides, and left in them ugly unhealed sores. Then more rough pine-shadowed roads, from which occasionally would open for a moment broad vistas of endless glades, clear as parks, breathless descents, or sharp steep cuts at the bottom of which Spring Creek, or as much of it as was not turned into the Rockerville sluices, brawled or idled along. ”

“ Low bush-grown hills lined the trail where it entered the wide valley of Leaping Creek, which, six miles further on, ran through the heart of the hamlet of Rocky Springs.
It was a beauty spot of no mean order. The smaller hills were broken and profuse, with dark woodland gorges splitting them in every direction, crowded with such a density of foliage as to be almost impassable. Farther on, as the valley widened and deepened, its aspect became more rugged. The land rose to greater heights, the lighter vegetation gave way to heavier growths of spruce and blue gum and maple. ”

“ In about a quarter of an hour, we descended from the summit of the Pass into the creek below, our road having been very much controlled and interrupted by the pines and springs on the mountain-side. Turning up the stream, we encamped on a bottom of good grass near its head, which gathers its waters in the dividing crest of the Rocky mountains, and, according to the best information we could obtain, separated only by the rocky wall of the ridge from the head of the main Arkansas river. ”

“ Black Creek, on whose wooded bank the Stopping-House stands, is a deep black stream which makes its way leisurely across the prairie between steep banks. Here and there throughout its length are little shallow stretches which show a golden braid down the centre like any peaceful meadow brook where children may with safety float their little boats, but Black Creek, with its precipitous holes, is no safe companion for any living creature that has not webbed toes or a guardian angel. ”

“ To a person sitting quietly at home, Rocky Mountain travelling, like Rocky Mountain scenery, must seem very monotonous; but not so to me, to whom the pure, dry mountain air is the elixir of life. At Golden City I parted for a time from my faithful pony, as Clear Creek Canyon, which leads from it to Idaho, is entirely monopolised by a narrow-gauge railroad, and is inaccessible for horses or mules. To be without a horse in these mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness. ”

“ Those to the north are about a hundred miles in extreme length, and, rising from a great plateau, lie perpendicular to the direction of the real Rocky Mountains toward which they lead: half the course of the Pina Pa subtends their southern base. The Western men know them as the Rattlesnake Hills, while the southern are called after the river. The former—a continuation of the ridge in which the Sweetwater has burst a gap—is one of those long lines of lumpy, misshapen, barren rock, that suggested to the Canadians for the whole region the name of Les Montagnes Rocheuses. ”