Part 19 (1/2)
One day heavy clouds rested upon the snowy earth around my cabin, nine thousand feet above sea-level. In these, and in the falling snow, I started up the Long's Peak trail, in what now is the Rocky Mountain National Park. I wished to measure the storm-cloud's vertical depth and to observe its movements. Only a ravine and instinct enabled me to snow-shoe through the blinding, flying snow and almost opaque sheep's-wool cloud. The cloud was three thousand feet thick.
Suddenly, at twelve thousand feet, the depth of snow became markedly less. Within a few rods I burst through the upper surface of the cloud into brilliant suns.h.i.+ne! Not a bit of snow or cloud was there above this upper level.
From a high ridge I watched the top surface of the storm-cloud as it lay before me in the sun--a silvery expanse of unruffled sea, pierced by many peaks. Half a mile above towered vast, rugged Long's Peak.
Like a huge raft becalmed in a quiet harbor, the cloud-sea moved slowly and steadily, almost imperceptibly, a short distance along the mountains; then, as if anch.o.r.ed in the center, it swung in easy rotation a few degrees, hesitated, and slowly drifted back.
Occasionally it sank, very slowly, several hundred feet, only to rise easily to its original level.
With wonder I long watched this beautiful sunny spectacle, finding it hard to realize that a blinding snow was falling beneath it. Later I learned that this snowfall was thirty inches deep over several hundred thousand square miles; but it fell only below the alt.i.tude of twelve thousand feet and not on the high peaks.
Mountain-tops have more suns.h.i.+ne and fewer storms than the lowlands.
The middle slopes of a peak regularly receive heavier falls of rain and snow than does the summit.
The rugged mountains in all Parks are wonderful in the snow. Snowshoe excursions, climbs, skiing--all the sports of winter--may be enjoyed in these magnificent wilds. Mountains in winter hold splendid decorations--sketches of black and white, ice architecture, rare groups that form a wondrous winter exhibition. Forests, canons, meadows, plateaus and peaks, where hills of snow and gigantic snow canons form dazzling structures and new topography, are marvelous exhibitions. The thousand and one decorations of frost and snow-flowers are treasures found only under the winter sky.
During a high wind one winter, as I fought my way up Long's Peak, above timber-line I was pelted with gravel and sand till the blood was drawn. The milling air-currents simply played with me as they swept down from the heights. I was knocked down repeatedly, blown into the air, and then dropped heavily, or rolled about like some giant's toy as I lay resting in the lee of a crag. Standing erect was usually impossible and at all times dangerous. Advancing was akin to swimming a whirlpool. At last I reached the buzzing cups of an air-meter I had previously placed in Granite Pa.s.s, twelve thousand feet above sea-level. This instrument was registering the awful wind-speed of one hundred and sixty-five miles an hour! It flew to pieces later during a swifter spurt.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LONG'S PEAK FROM CHASM LAKE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK]
Although I intended going no farther, the wild and eloquent elements lured me to keep on to the summit of the peak, nearly three thousand feet higher. All my strength and climbing knowledge were necessary to prevent me from being blown into s.p.a.ce. Gaining each new height was a battle. Forward and upward I simply wrested my way with an invisible, tireless contestant who seemed bent on breaking my bones or hurling me into unbanistered s.p.a.ce.
In one rocky gully the uprising winds became so irresistible that I had to reverse ends and proceed with feet out ahead as bracers and hands following as anchors. There was no climbing from here on: the blast dragged, pulled, and floated me ever upward to the sunny, wind-sheltered Narrows. The last stretch was a steep icy slope with a precipice beneath. Casting in my lot with the up-sweeping wind, I pushed out into it and let go. Sprawling and b.u.mping upward, I had little else to do but guide myself. At last I stood on the top and found it in an easy eddy--almost a calm compared to the roaring conditions below. Far down the range great quant.i.ties of snow were being explosively hurled into the air, then thrown into spirals and whirls that trimmed the peak-points with gauzy banners and silky pennants, through which the sunlight played splendidly.
Stirring and wild, wonderful scenes are encountered during storms on mountain-tops, by the lakesh.o.r.e, and in canons. The dangers in such times and places are fewer than in cities. Discomforts? Scarcely. To some persons life must be hardly worth living. If any normal person under fifty cannot enjoy being in a storm in the wilds, he ought to reform at once.
In the intensity and clash of the elements there is a vigorous building environment. The storms furnish energy, inspiration, and resolution. There are no subst.i.tutes ”just as good,” no experiences just as great.
One rainy June day I started up a dim steep trail toward the headwaters of the river St. Vrain, near timber-line in what is now the Rocky Mountain National Park. While enjoying the general downpour and its softened noise through the woods, I was caught in a storm-center of wrangling winds and waters, and was almost knocked down. Like a sapling, I bowed streaming in the storm. Later, as I sat on a sodden log, reveling in the elemental moods and sounds, a water-ouzel began to sing, but I heard little of his serene optimistic solo above the roar of the wind and stream.
The storm raged louder as I approached timber-line. Clouds dragged among the trees. I could see nothing clearly. Every breath was like swallowing a wet sponge. Then a wind-surge rent the clouds and let me glimpse the blue sun-filled sky. I climbed an exceptionally tall spruce. A comic Fremont squirrel scolded in rattling, jerky chatter as I rose above the sea of clouds and trees. Astride the slender tree-top, I felt that the wind was trying hard to dislodge me, but I held on. The tree quivered and vibrated, shook and danced; we charged, circled, looped, and angled. Nowhere else have I experienced such wild, exhilarating joy. In the midst of this rare delight the clouds rose, the wind calmed, and the rain ceased. Then suddenly a blinding, explosive crash almost threw me from my observatory. Within fifty feet a tall fir was split to the ground. Quickly climbing back to earth, I eagerly examined the effects of the lightning-stroke. With one wild blow, in a second or less it had wrecked a century-old tree.
Although I have rarely known lightning to strike the heights, I have frequently experienced peculiar electric shocks from the air. I have never known such electrical storms to prove fatal nor to leave ill effects; and they may be beneficial. The day before the famous Poudre Flood, in May, 1904, I was traveling along the Continental Divide above timber-line near Poudre Lakes. While resting I was startled by the pulsating hum, the intermittent _buzz-z-z-z_ and _zit-zit_ and the vigorous hair-pulling of electricity-laden atmosphere.
Presently my right arm was momentarily cramped, and my heart seemed to lurch several times. These electric shocks lasted only about two seconds, but recurred every few minutes. The hair-pulling, palpitation, and cramps seemed slightly less when I fully relaxed on the ground. When I tried to climb, I found myself muscle-bound from the electricity. Points of dry twigs momentarily exhibited tips of smoky blue flame, and sometimes similar flame encircled green twigs below the lower limbs.
Later that day I came to North Specimen Mountain. There the electrical waves weakened or entirely ceased while I was in shadow, but they remained quite serious in the sun. I breathed only in gasps, and my heart was violent and feeble by turns. I felt as if cinched in a steel corset. After sundown I was again at ease and free from this strange electrical colic, which often worries or frightens strangers the first time they experience it. I soon forgot my own electrical experiences in the enjoyment that night of the splendidly brilliant electric effects beneath the enormous mountain-range of cloud-forms over the foothills. Its surface shone momentarily like incandescent gla.s.s, and occasionally down the slopes ran crooked rivers of gold.
I have had the good fortune to see geysers by sunlight, by moonlight, during gray stormy days, and also while the earth around them was covered with snow.
By moonlight the mountainous National Parks are enchanted lands.
There is a gentleness, a serenity, and a softness that is never known in daylight. Many a time I have explored all night long. The trail is strangely romantic when across it fall the moon-toned etchings of the pines. The waterfalls, crags, mountain-tops, forest glades, and alpine lakes have marvelous combinations of light and shade, and they stir the senses like music. I wish that every one might see in the moonlight the Giant Forest in the Sequoia National Park, or timber-line in the Rocky Mountain National Park. By moonlight the Big Trees will stir you with the greatest elemental eloquence. Those who go up into the sky on mountains in the moonlight will have the greatest raptures and make the highest resolves.
Miss Edna Smith is one of the most appreciative outdoor women I ever have known. Years ago I urged her to know the mountains at night. Here is one of her accounts of a night experience:--
At supper-time the chances seemed against a start. It was raining.
Later the rain stopped, but the full moon was almost lost in a heavy mist and the light was dim. Mr. S. N. Husted, the guide, thought an attempt to ascend Long's Peak hardly wise. At eleven o'clock I went to Enos Mills for advice. He said, ”Go.” So we mounted our ponies and started, chilled by the clammy fog about us.
After a short climb we were in another world. The fog was a sea of silvery clouds below us and from it the mountains rose like islands. The moon and stars were bright in the heavens. There was the sparkle in the air that suggests enchanted lands and fairies.
Halfway to timber-line we came upon ground white with snow, which made it seem all the more likely that Christmas pixies just within the shadows might dance forth on a moon-beam.
Above timber-line there was no snow, but the moonlight was so brilliant that the clouds far below were s.h.i.+ning like misty lakes, and even the bare mountainside about us looked almost as white as if snow-covered.