Mountain valley

“ Due west I see across the deep valley into my friend’s house, where it crowns the ridge, and then beyond to that vast plain which, in its miles and miles of forest-covered flatness, broken by great river-mouths, long vistas of deep lagoons, and a group of shining pools scattered over its surface, forms one of the strangest features in this matchless panorama of mountain, river and plain, sea, sky, and ever-changing cloud-effects. ”

“ Standing at the head of it on a blunt bluff, you look down and out on the prairies, and nothing can be more enchanting than the view that is thus presented. On each side there are lofty hills, which, when green with grass and foliage, add a magic beauty to the scene. Through the valley, as if it had been intended for its dividing line, runs a broad mountain stream, the banks of which are now metamorphosed into beautiful fields. ”

“ From the base of the long slant of the mountain the valley spreads away to the circling frame of the hills, and beyond the frame the billowy sweep of remote great ranges rises to view and flows, fold upon fold, wave upon wave, soft and blue and unwordly, to the horizon fifty miles away. ”

“ It is an enchanted valley. "The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep," and the sunlight is the light of no common day. The gloom and the glory of mountain beauty meet in the valley. This feeling is intensified by the continuous sound of rushing waters, now faint when the path enters the woods, now filling the air as the torrent sweeps by at your feet. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And our journey was beautiful, this day, between the lofty mountains, from amongst which gleamed forth snow and fields of ice, whilst the pleasantest woods of melize-trees come down from the mountains, to the banks of the foaming Viege, which roars through the valley. Our road lies along the riverside, by a good footpath. Little villages, with their white churches, lie in picturesque disorder, upon the mountain plains. ”

“ The scenery now became more wild than ever. The valley was narrow, and on each side of it were to be seen lofty precipices and vast slopes of mountain land—some smooth and green, and covered, though very steep, with flocks and herds, and others feathered with dark evergreen forests, or covered with ragged rocks, or pierced with frightful chasms. Here and there a zigzag path was seen leading from hamlet to hamlet or from peak to peak up the mountain, with peasants ascending or descending by them and bearing burdens of every form and variety on their backs. ”

“ Finally the mountain valley, with its patches of cultivable soil on the alluvial fans of tributary torrents, its narrow pastures on the uplands only left clear of snow in summer, its intensified extremes of climates and its isolation, almost equal to that of an island, has in all countries produced a special type of brave and hardy people, whose utmost effort may bring them comfort, but not wealth, by honest toil, who know little of the outer world, and to whom the natural outlet for ambition is marauding on the fertile plains. ”

“ We drive through a fertile valley, where runs a placid river amid many meadows, gardens, and orchards, until at last it empties into a picturesque basin, where the landscape shows a harmonious blending of mountain and water, of cultivated fields and ancient forest trees. ”

“ The broad and beautiful valley is bounded on either hand by an elevated and undulating country, with streams, mills, farms, villages, forests, and now and then a towering mountain, to vary and embellish the landscape. In some cases a sort of spur or projection from the upland country projects into the valley, forming a mountain summit there, from which the most magnificent views are obtained of the beauty and fertility of the surrounding scene. ”

“ Below us lay a deep valley, a fold, as it were, in the skin of the mountain, well but not densely bushed. The woods of this valley climbed up the mountain flank for some distance above it and then gave way to grassy slopes that ended in steep sides of rock, which were crowned by a black and frowning precipice of unknown height. ”

“ While the valley lies in shadow and the peaks are all aglow—
Where the airs of heaven blow
'Twixt the pine woods and the snow,20
And the shades of evening deepen in the valley far below:
They will scale the mountain strongholds that in days of old you won,
They will plod behind a lantern ere the rising of the sun,
On a 'grat' or in a chimney, on the steep and dizzy slope,
For a foothold or a handhold they will diligently grope—
On the rocky, icy slope26
(Where we'll charitably hope
'Tis assistance only Moral that they're getting from a rope) ”

“ The drop down of 2000 feet from this point to the level of the valley is performed by a track, the gradient of which—if such it can be called—is simply terrific. It scrambles down the mountain-side and through a grand forest of trees like a sheer torrent of boulders and rocks. ”

“ Dark grey was the valley everywhere, save that by the side of the water was a space of bright green-sward hedged about toward the mountain by a wall of rocks tossed up into wild shapes of spires and jagged points. ”

“ As we get out of the cars, the intense stillness of the valley strikes us. We look up to, and are covered by the shadows of the three well-defined slanting peaks of the Three Sisters and the Wind mountain. ”

“ Where the mountain sloped it grew covered with redwood, and where the hills shrank away they left a wide gap for the ocean breeze and the ocean fog to roll in.
Across the Valley was another mountain, dark and grand, [Pg 17] with flecks of black growing chemasal in clefts and crevices, and sunny slopes and green fields lying at its base. And oh! the charm of these mountains. In the Valley there might be the fog and the chill of the North, but on the mountains lay the warmth and the dreaminess of the South. ”

“ The extensive Alpine valley through which rushed a considerable stream lay far in the depths of the mountain-range, so secluded and lonely that it might have been entirely shut off from the world and its turmoil ”

“ I set my course toward a prominent thumb of rock, but when I reached it, it had either changed its shape or moved. The whole valley was strange.
After skiing for several hours, I topped an utterly foreign ridge. Below me were houses. I coasted down to the nearest that had smoke rising from its chimney. A neighbor, living just a mile from home, came to the door. Then I realized where I was, and recognized the "strange" valley, the "unfamiliar" ridge and my neighbors' houses. ”

“ And if you climb any of the ridges or peaks around, there are discovered other valleys and heights and ranges, wild and desert, stretching endlessly away. As day draws to an end the shadows on the snow turn bluer, the crying of innumerable waters hushes, and the immense, bare ramparts of westward-facing rock that guard the great valley win a rich, golden-brown radiance. Long after the sun has set they seem to give forth the splendour of the day, and the tranquillity of their centuries, in undiminished fulness. They have that other-worldly serenity which a perfect old age possesses. ”

“ The extensive range of country seen from this hill increased in beauty as we ascended the road which ran along the edge of the ravine, fringed with majestic euphorbias; in the distance deep blue mountains, and plains of red sand, then wavy bush-covered hills, and in the valley below us the winding river, and our rear guard, with their long line of waggons slowly advancing. ”

“ In the centre of the valley, there are two great mountains, and as I write they are becoming wrapped in purple-blue gloom, with sable shadows in their granite sides, and whilst the valley is in darkness, the peaks are still bright with the last gleams of fading daylight. ”

“ A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon either hand that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits the higher you climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village of hotels; a world of black and white—black pine-woods, clinging to the sides of the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it between the pine-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd ”

“ The scenery becomes grander and wilder every mile as the special hurries on as well as it can over the sinuous line, which is piercing a mountain region savage and sterile, and climbing by the sides of ravines and creeping upwards in rocky valleys with pine-clad hill-tops and frowning cliffs above. ”

“ Great hills rose on every side, folding against each other as if they meant to shut out the rest of the world, with its noise, and trouble, and weariness. So the valley looked, from a distance, like a bird's nest lined with moss, and leaves, and long fine grass ”

“ For a while I examined the valley, but I saw no sign of life there. Then I turned and went slowly up the hill, the sunlight falling warmly on my body, and my feet sinking sensuously in the deep grass.
When I came to the crest and looked over, I saw another valley before me, deeper than the first. The hill rolled away, down [Pg 14] and down for miles, to a long, wide plain. ”

“ The many ranges of hills also that could be seen as the valley opened were very beautiful, for though hardly lofty enough to deserve the name of mountains, the line of the more distant was rugged and bold, and in the clear atmosphere tier upon tier could be seen, till the last faded away in the blue distance. ”

“ The farther one invades these precincts, the more one comes to feel that the valley is rightly named. The great mountains, the very temples of the gods, loom high above. Mighty canyons, rocked ribbed, ragged, gloomy, forest-garbed, deep and fascinating, have been gouged from their very vitals. ”

“ Each side of the long valley is a continuous ridge, which offers it a high, wooded horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a charming stream, wandering, winding and doubling, smothered here and there in rushes, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the clear shadow of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. ”

“ Let us therefore leave the river bank, and visit another portion of the old continent.
We stand in a lovely valley surrounded on all sides by high mountains, whose slopes are covered with luxuriant vegetation. A crystal stream meanders through the fertile plains, and runs into a fairy-like lake, upon whose margin there are little groups of arborescent ferns and palms. The whole valley has the appearance of a rich garden, and we regard its varied beauties with rapturous admiration. ”

“ I don't know when it is most beautiful up here,—in the morning, when the heat lies along the valley in delicate mists, and the folded mountains, one behind the other, grow dimmer and dimmer beyond sight, swooning away through tender gradations of violets and greys, or at night when I look over the edge of the terrace and see the lights in the valley shimmering as though they were reflected in water. ”

“ And then, whichever way you branch out from the central valley up its smaller vales, there is still the same or even greater beauty. Rushing rivers with snow cold water flinging themselves over rocks and stones; little villages hid under the shade of towering walnut trees; and, as you get further up, peaks reaching up to heaven, glaciers, from under which bellow forth dark dazzling streams. ”

“ A wonderful outlook of wide valleys, bounded in almost every direction by the vast incline of wood-clad hills, opened out a world that seemed to terminate abruptly everywhere, yet to go on and on in an endless series of great green valleys and mountain streams. ”

“ All along the valleys, water abounds—sometimes bounding from the heights, in jets, in rivulets, in masses, leaping from rock to rock, and reaching the ground only in white clouds of spray, or, as in the case of the little river which flows alongside the inn at the bridge, bursting directly from the ground in a continuous spring; these waterfalls, and streams, and springs being fed all the year through by the immense glaciers that fill the hollows of the mountains on either side the valley. ”

“ Sometimes it glides rapidly but smoothly through a picturesque valley, between wooded banks; then, forcing its way into the bosom of rugged mountains, it rushes impetuously through narrow defiles, roaring and foaming down rocks and rapids, until it is again soothed to rest in some peaceful valley. ”

“ There are the same sharp peaks, precipitous slopes, narrow valleys and swift streams and rivers, composing a landscape which, except for the greater scale of the phenomena, is essentially and constantly alpine in character. Unlike our Alps but like the barrier on the side of the Black Sea, one valley is ever higher than the trough which lies behind it, each crest more lofty than the last, as you journey towards the edge of the tableland whether from the coast of the northern waters or from the alluvial flats which extend to the Persian Gulf. ”

“ The major joined them and they extended their walk for a mile or more through the woods, climbing the hill that forms the western boundary of the valley, from which they had a birdseye view of the village and the surrounding country, a beautiful landscape, in all its native wildness, diversified with hill and valley, forest and prairie, traversed by streams of living water. ”