Part 6 (2/2)
Below the timber-line these lakes are more appealing, and many in the midst of groves and meadows help to form delightful wild parks. Others are hidden away in black forests; tall, crowding firs and spruces rise from their edges and hide them completely, even when one is only a yard or two from their sh.o.r.es. I camped for a week within a stone's throw of one of these forest-embowered gems without suspecting its presence. Returning to camp one evening from an encircling ramble, I was startled by stepping into a lake-edge. For a moment I was puzzled.
Instinctively I felt that my camp was about the width of the lake ahead of me. Although I felt certain of my bearings, my mental processes were such that I was unwilling to trust this strange lake.
Instead of walking around its poetic sh.o.r.e, I lashed two water-soaked logs together with willows and on this rude raft made my way directly across. My camp was within fifty feet of the place where I landed.
Elements of peculiar attractiveness are combined in the lakes that are situated along the timber-line. Some have a treeless mountain or a rugged snow-piled peak rising boldly behind, and an acre or so of meadow between one sh.o.r.e and the forest. A segment of wind-distorted trees, a few enormous rock domes, a fine pile of boulders, and a strip of willow with clumps of spruces and firs combine to give a charming border.
Among the best known of these Colorado lakes are Grand, Trapper's, Bierstadt, Trout, San Cristoval, Chicago, Thunder, Silver, Moraine, and Twin Lakes. Grand Lake, probably the largest, is about three miles long by one mile wide. Its basin appears to be largely due to a morainal dam. The San Cristoval basin appears to have been formed by a mud stream which blockaded a mountain valley. The lakes of the Long's Peak region are my favorites. These are numerous and show a variety of forms. Grand Lake and a few others lie to the west; Thunder Lake, Ouzel Lake, and a dozen others are in Wild Basin to the south; Odessa, Bierstadt, and the score of lakes in Loch Vale and Glacier Gorge are to the north. All are within ten miles of the summit of this peak.
These lakes and their splendid mountain setting will in time give scenic fame to the region.
The alpine lakes in the mountains of the West are but little known to travelers. Many Western people appreciate the beauty of the Swiss and Italian lakes but do not even know of the existence of the s.h.i.+ning lakes in their own mountains. But the unexcelled beauty and grandeur of these lakes, their scenic surroundings, and the happy climate in which they repose will in due time give them fame and bring countless travelers to their sh.o.r.es.
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAPPER'S LAKE]
In exploring the mountains I have often camped on a lake-sh.o.r.e. These camps were conveniently situated for the exploration of neighboring slopes and the valley below; or for making excursions to the more rugged scenes,--the moraines, snow-fields, cirques, and peaks above. Many an evening after a day with the moraines and the forests, or with the eagles and the crags, I have gone down to one of these ideal camping-places. Here through the night my fire blazed and faded in the edge of a meadow before a templed cl.u.s.ter of spruces on a rocky rim above the lake.
Many times camp was so situated that splendid sunsets or the lingering pink and silver afterglow were at their best behind a broken sky-line ridge. My camp-fire was reflected in the lake, which often sparkled as if enamel-filled with stars. Across one corner lay softly the inverted Milky Way. Shooting stars pa.s.sed like white rockets through the silent waters. The moon came up big and yellow from behind a crag and in the lake became a disc of gold. Many a night the cliffs repeated the restlessness of the wind-shaken water until the sun quieted all with light. During the calm nights there were hours of almost unbroken silence, though at times and faintly a far-off waterfall could be heard, the bark of a fox sounded across the lake, or the weird and merry cries of the coyote were echoed and reechoed around the sh.o.r.e.
More often the white-crowned sparrow sang hopefully in the night.
Morning usually was preceded by a horizon of red and rose and gold.
Often, too, vague sheep and deer along the farther sh.o.r.e were slowly developed into reality by the morning light. From all around birds came to bathe and drink, and meet in morning song service.
Occasionally I remained in camp almost motionless from early morning until the stars of evening filled the lake, enjoying the comings and goings and social gatherings of the wilderness folk.
These lakes, if frozen during calm times, have ice of exceeding clearness and smoothness. In early winter this reflects peak, cloud, and sky with astonis.h.i.+ng faithfulness. In walking across on this ice when the reflective condition was at its best, I have marveled at my reflection, or that of Scotch, my dog, walking on what appeared to be the surface of the water. The lakes above timber-line are frozen over about nine months of the year, some of them even longer. Avalanches of snow often pile upon them, burying them deeply.
Gravity and water are filling with debris and sediment these basins which the glaciers dug. Many lakes have long since faded from the landscape. The earthy surface as it emerges above the water is in time overspread with a carpet of plushy sedge or gra.s.s, a tangle of willow, a grove of aspen, or a forest of pine or spruce. The rapidity of this filling is dependent on a number of things,--the situation of the lake, the stability of the watershed, its relation to forests, slopes, meadows, and other lakes, which may intercept a part of the down-coming sediment or wreckage. This filling material may be deposited evenly over the bottom, the lake steadily becoming shallower, though maintaining its original size, with its edge clean until the last; or it may be heaped at one end or piled along one side. In some lakes the entering stream builds a slowly extending delta, which in time gains the surface and extends over the entire basin. In other lakes a side stream may form an expanding dry delta which the gra.s.s, willows or aspens eagerly follow outward and cover long before water is displaced from the remainder of the lake's rock-bound sh.o.r.es. With many, the lower end of the basin, shallow from the first, is filled with sediment and changed to meadow, while the deep upper end lies almost unchanged in its rock basin. Now and then a plunging landslide forms an island, on which the spruces and firs make haste to wave triumphant plumes. Lake Agnes on the northern slope of Mt. Richthofen was formed with a rounded dome of glaciated rock remaining near the centre. This lake is being filled by the slow inflow of a ”rock stream.”
Landslides, large and small, often plunge into these lakes. One of the largest rock avalanches that I ever saw made one wild leap into Chasm Lake and buried itself. This was about the middle of June. This glacier lake is on the eastern side of Long's Peak and is in a most utterly wild place. The lake was still covered with thick ice, and on the ice the snow lay deep. But spring was melting and loosening things in the alpine heights. As I stood on a talus slope above the outlet of the lake, an echoing on the opposite cliffs told me that a rock-slide was coming down. Almost instantly there was the ripping whizz of falling stone. A huge stone struck and pierced twenty feet of snow and more than four feet of ice, which covered the lake. At the same instant there came sounds of riot from above. More stones were coming down. The crash of their striking, repeated and reechoed by surrounding cliffs and steeps, made an uproarious cras.h.i.+ng as though the top of Long's Peak had collapsed. It was an avalanche of several thousand tons off the slope of Mt. Was.h.i.+ngton.
This avalanche was formed of a quant.i.ty of broken granite sufficient to load a number of freight-trains. It smashed through the icy cover of the lake. The effect was like a terrific explosion. Enormous fragments of ice were thrown into the air and hurled afar. Great ma.s.ses of water burst explosively upward, as if the entire filling of water had been blown out or had leaped out of its basin. The cliffs opposite were deluged. The confused wind-current which this created shredded and separated much of the water into spray, das.h.i.+ng and blowing it about. I was thoroughly drenched. For half a minute this spray whirled so thickly that it was almost smothering.
Water and ice are incessantly at work tearing down the heights. Water undermines by was.h.i.+ng away the softer parts and by leaching. Every winter ice thrusts its expansive wedge into each opening. Places are so shattered by this explosive action that thousands of gallons of water are admitted. This collects in openings, and the following winter the freezing and forcing continues. During the winter the irresistible expansion of freezing water thus pushes the rocks and widens the openings with a force that is slow but powerful. Winter by winter rocks are moved; summer by summer the water helps enlarge the opening. Years or centuries go by, and at last during a rainy time or in the spring thaw a ma.s.s slips away or falls over. This may amount to only a few pounds, or it may be a cliff or even a mountain-side.
The long ice-ages of the earth appear to have their sway, go, and return. These alternate with long climatic periods made up of the short winters and the other changing seasons such as we know. The glacier lake is slowly created, but an avalanche may blot it out the day after it is completed. Other lakes more favorably situated may live on for thousands of years. But every one must eventually pa.s.s away. These lakes come into existence, have a period of youth, maturity, and declining years; then they are gone forever. They are covered over with verdure--covered with beauty--and forgotten.
A Mountain Pony
A Mountain Pony
Our stage in the San Juan Mountains had just gained the top of the grade when an alert, riderless pony trotted into view on a near-by ridge. Saddled and bridled, she was returning home down a zigzag trail after carrying a rider to a mine up the mountain-side. One look at this trim, spirited ”return horse” from across a narrow gorge, and she disappeared behind a cliff.
A moment later she rounded a point of rocks and came down into the road on a gallop. The stage met her in a narrow place. Indifferent to the wild gorge below, she paused unflinchingly on the rim as the brus.h.i.+ng stage dashed by. She was a beautiful bay pony.
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