Mountain peak

“ Just before reaching the ridge, where it joins this peak, a fine spring, deliciously cold, gushed from the mountain side. A few rods more of ascent brought us quite out upon the long, narrow, curving backbone of the mountain, uplifting its sharp edge between two profound gorges, connecting the peaks set at its two extremes, between which Nature has decreed a perpetual divorce. The sun was just setting as we emerged upon this natural way conducting from peak to peak along the airy crest of the mountain. ”

“ The mountain peak, the rounded hill, the wide plain which lies where hills and mountains once stood, tell clearly of the great results which slow processes will reach when given long time in which to do their work. ”

“ It has been my good-fortune to have had opportunities of climbing many new peaks and crossing several new passes—one of them the longest mountain-glacier pass in the world. Beyond all question the passes have been more interesting and exciting than the peaks. When you reach the summit of your peak the excitement suddenly ends; on the top of a pass it only culminates. ”

“ We peer over the verge of the cliffs, still wrapped in their morning shadows, and mark how peak, ridge, and wall of flinty quartzite, glowing in tints of orange, yellow, and red, uprear themselves from the face of the declivity, like the muscles on the limb of some sculptured Hercules, as if the mountain had gathered up its whole strength and knit its frame together to defy the fiercest assaults of the elements. But look how every crag is splintered, how every jutting buttress is rent and creviced, how every ledge is strewn with blocks that have fallen from the naked wall above it! ”

“ Moreover, the distance to which the sight penetrates, the area over which it ranges, bears some moderate proportion to the size of the mountain-masses included in it. In the view from a high peak, visible distances are so great, the area embraced is so vast, the peaks visible appear to be so countless, that each of them may shrink into individual insignificance. It is the multitude of peaks rather than the mass of any, their abundance rather than the form of any, that causes the overwhelming impression upon the spectator. ”

“ She will patiently toil up the steep gorges with a load on her back, and will drop dead in her tracks before she will show any stubbornness or want of courage. The culminating point of the range, and the highest mountain peak in the world, is Mount Everest, which is a little over twenty-nine thousand feet in height above the level of the sea. ”

“ The summit of the hill is a dreary plateau strewed with great boulders, from which is a striking view of mountain peaks, with valleys branching in various directions closed by glistening glaciers, while gleaming among their barren surroundings are lakes and fjords. ”

“ He was climbing yonder range of mountain peaks—peaks which, though built of unsubstantial cloud, were more beautiful than any show-place of the tourist’s seeking—peaks upon whose shining summit the soul might stand and look out upon the infinite—peaks which might be climbed by the fancy of those whose fortune it might never be to see an Alpine height. ”

“ All the engineers who had made a minute survey of the great mountain chain seem to have agreed that the particular peak which afforded the most favourable opportunity for ascent is one which is situated at about three thousand miles from the pole. It should be remembered that the level of the cloud-screen crosses these peaks at an altitude of about twenty miles, or, in round numbers, one hundred and five thousand feet. ”

“ A man's eye doesn't get a chance to adapt itself to the highest hills by measuring the gentler slopes that are nearer to him. Here the mountains rise either in a continual slope or else in a series of cut walls, one above the other, to the straight up peaks. I don't believe the distance on foot to one of these mountains is more than twice the mountain's height. I don't believe many people that have not been here have had a chance to stand at the sea-level and look straight up to a snow peak right above them as high as these are. That is what makes these mountains seem so high and so wonderful. ”

“ The formation of these mountains is such as to present an infinite variation of outline and altitude, such as one observes in almost no other mountain region of the world. The mountaineer may stand on the summit of a lofty peak and behold a sea of mountains extending fifty or one hundred miles in every 272 direction, with no plains or distant ocean to suggest a limit to their extent. Such a vast area, nearly half a thousand miles in width, and thousands of miles in length, presents an extent of mountain ranges such as are found in no other part of the world. ”

“ Most mountain peaks, except those of the volcanoes, are remnants of hard rock which have been left standing while the rivers and the weather cut away the softer rock around them.
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IN THE HIMALAYAS THEY MIGHT CALL THESE "HILLS"
High as these mountains are—we are right on the roof of the Rockies—if they were in the Himalayas they might be called "hills," because there the scenery grows so much taller. What does the sharpness of the peaks say as to the age of these mountains? Compared with the Appalachians, for example? ”

“ On the east there was little to mark the altitude except the rocky soil and scanty vegetation; on the north there were picturesque piles of granite; on the north-west lay the Laramie Hills; from the northwest to the south towered the mountain-peaks, many of them covered with perpetual snow. ”

“ Range behind range of great mountains lie below, like a Titanic ocean stilled by some mighty hand. From this supreme elevation it is possible to study the structural character of the region, and to count all the great chains that cross the country, while no words can express the varying and exquisite color that, like a glamour of heavenly enchantment, lies over the wide expanse. The whole earth, “and the beauty thereof,” seems to be spread out at one’s feet, and the airs that come to this high mountain crest are full of freshness and balm. ”

“ It is one of a group of peaks, several of which are above 14,000 feet, amid the most sublime surroundings. The peaks are buttressed with ridges of granite, streaked with the snows of ages, and furrowed with canons, the desolation of the scene increased rather than relieved by the many little blue lakes that repose in the ancient glacier-beds. This group is a part of that chain which stretches from Cape Horn to Behring's Straits, the grandest mountain-system on our planet. ”

“ In a dry, hot, monotonous forested plateau, seemingly boundless, you come suddenly and without warning upon the abrupt edge of a gigantic sunken landscape of the wildest, most multitudinous features, and those features, sharp and angular, are made out of flat beds of limestone and sandstone forming a spiry, jagged, gloriously colored mountain range countersunk in a level gray plain. ”

“ Wherever the eye rested toward the mountains, the snow-capped peaks raised themselves up into the clear blue sky; while at our feet lay the far-famed valley, reaching towards the north, to the very base of the mountain range, and rising gradually and by a gentle slope to our halting-place, and so back to the pass from which we had just descended. ”

“ On all sides mountains rise to an altitude of from 11,000 to 15,000 feet, their skirts shaggy with pitch-pine forests, and scarred by deep canyons, wooded and boulder strewn, opening upon the mountain pasture previously mentioned. ”

“ When seen from high altitudes, a mountain appears merely as a part of a vast panorama or a single element in a wild, limitless scene of desolate peaks, which raise their bare, bleak summits among the sea of mountains far up into the cold regions of the atmosphere, where they become white with eternal snow, and bound by rigid glaciers. ”

“ These hills divide two widely different climates,—forming an enormous barrier or boundary line between the two; the climates of the south and north here meet each other, without any intervening gradation of temperature, and destroy the equilibrium of the air, so that clouds are suddenly formed which rush together, and are again divided, or cling like a light veil around the lofty summit of the mountain,—blasts of wind rush in contrary directions among the high cliffs,—sudden gushes of rain pour down,—and the weather clears up and darkens with surprising rapidity. ”

“ For if we had many days of cloud and smother of vapor that blotted out everything, when a fine day came how brilliant beyond all that lower levels know it was! From our perch on that ridge the lofty peaks and massive ridges rose on every side. As little by little we gained higher and higher eminence the view broadened, and ever new peaks and ridges thrust themselves into view. We were within the hall of the mountain kings indeed ”

“ Probably most mountaineers would agree that the charm of mountain scenery is to be found in every step taken in the upper world. The strange interfolding of the snows, the gaunt, weird crags of the ridges, the vast, blue, icicle-fringed crevasse, or the great smooth slabs sloping-downwards through apparently bottomless space, are each and all no less lovely than the boundless horizon of the summit view. ”

“ The sky to- day is mostly clear, with just clouds enough hovering about the mountains to show them to best advantage as they stretch onward in sustained grandeur like two separate and distinct ranges, each mountain with its glaciers and clouds and fine sculpture glowing bright in smooth, graded light. Only a few of them exceed five thousand feet in height; but as one naturally associates great height with ice-and-snow-laden mountains and with glacial sculpture so pronounced, they seem much higher. ”

“ The rocks themselves bear witness to the intense heat which has either cracked them wide open, crumbled them in pieces, or divested them, like oysters, of their outer shell, all along the path of the conflagration.
The walk over the lower summits to the base of the peak occupied another hour, and is a most profitable feature of the ascent. On each side a superb panorama of mountains and lakes, of towns, villages, and hamlets, is being slowly unrolled; while every forward step develops the inaccessible character of the high summit more and more. ”

“ In fact, the general lack of rugged escarpments as well as of great elevation leads the geographer to rank even the highest of these rounded summits as hills of large size rather than attempt to burden them with the dignity that the term mountain carries with it. They are beautiful hills, separated one from another by lovely valleys, which draw the beholder to them and fill his memory with tender longings and vague dreamy fancies such as the sterner grandeurs of great mountains fail to awaken. ”

“ THE TWINS OF TABLE MOUNTAIN.
CHAPTER I.
A CLOUD ON THE MOUNTAIN.
They lived on the verge of a vast stony level, upheaved so far above the surrounding country that its vague outlines, viewed from the nearest valley, seemed a mere cloud-streak resting upon the lesser hills. The rush and roar of the turbulent river that washed its eastern base were lost at that height; the winds that strove with the giant pines that half way climbed its flanks spent their fury below the summit; for, at variance with most meteorological speculation, an eternal calm seemed to invest this serene altitude. ”

“ At times, upon the crest of the Continental Divide, and at an altitude of from ten to twelve thousand feet, I have covered from three to five miles in an hour. And again, while breaking a snow trail, creeping up treacherous glacier ice, or edging along the ledges, I have often reversed the digits, taking several hours to gain a single mile.
Then, too, no trip is taken twice under the same conditions. The mountains are never the same: the weather, the wind, snow or rain conditions may alter decidedly the footing upon their slopes. ”

“ Finding myself at a point from which it seemed that the summit of the mountain could now be reached, and led as is the average young man by an irrepressible desire to descend into the deepest hole or reach the top of the highest hill at any time within the range of vision, I determined to complete the ascent and take a look down upon that part of the world. On nearing the summit I observed a dense mist slowly creeping along the eastern slope of the mountain and bridging the ravine with soft billowy folds upon which the bright sunlight rested. ”

“ The stupendous heights are at times absolutely shrouded in smoke; the climb of twenty-seven hundred feet in thirty miles around the mountain shelves and through vast snow sheds (most expensive in their construction) , to emerge again into the light for a glance down the gorges into the glaciers, over and above to the lofty summits, is all the imagination can picture, and the traveler feels like a "mighty atom" in the midst thereof. ”

“ It is its gradual rise that imparts so great a value to this noble mountain; for about its enormous base and upon its slopes, traversed by hundreds of streams of clear perennial water, there grows, or may grow, in successive, concentric belts, every kind of crop and forest known in the world, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle. The landscape is superb. ”

“ The sky was charged with large and heavy clouds; and a broad, deep, and as it were stormy, tint of dark purple ... mantled every mountain which we saw--with the exception of our old gigantic friend, of which the summit was buried in the clouds. At a given distance, you form a tolerably good notion of the altitude of mountains; and from this latter view of those in question, I should think that the highest may be about 3000 feet above the level of the lake. ”