Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1913 — ON THE BACKBONE OF AMERICA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON THE BACKBONE OF AMERICA

HOW soon shall we see the mountains?” said I to the conductor after our train had crawled over the Colorado prairies quite long enough, as I thought. “You are looking at them now!” he replied, with a patronizing grin reserved for the all too frequent tenderfoot, “What!” I exclaimed. "I thought those were clouds!" Thereupon my eyes gradually separated the mountains, more transparent deep blue from that of the more opaque clouds, and to distinguish the dim white markings of snow fields lying off there in the July sun. A little more gradually the configuration of the face of the distant range became visible, and. Io! ,1 beheld the veritable backbone of America —the peak of the gable! What absurdly Inadequate ideas of the “Rockies” we easterners do have before we see them! We are wont to register them as adult Alleghenies, but the sight of them makes us disavow any registry at all, writes B. A. Konkle in the Philadelphia Record. I count my first experience in the “Rockies” along with my first appreciation of a real poem, my first visit to a real play (it was old “Joe” as “Rip”), the first time on water out of sight of land, my first view of Niagara, my descent into Mammoth Cave, and my future trip in a biplane! The “Rockies” are not a sight; they are an experience. Even as we crawled across the prairies to Denver it began with the peculiarly stimulating air, so invigorating as to make one forget the weary journey and loss of sleep and rev6l in lung-filling inspirations. Then, too, the air became so clear as to seem to magnify, while one realized a certain distinctness of out-line-in-everything that gave -ar wholly new sense of brilliancy. This, in turn, perpetrates most baffling descriptions upon one’s judgment of distances. The foothills west of Denver are 14 miles away, but the granite walls of the old Front Range itself looks less than a mile distant.

Domination of the Mountains. The domination of the mountains is an experience, too. An elderly country woman was once visiting in a suburb for the first time and complained that she "could feel that great city athreatening all the time.” The mountains control the clouds, which play about them continually like Insects about a lamp until their life is burned out. They dress themselves in clouds and necklaces of gleaming snow, and change their dress 40 times a day. A part will clothe itself one way, the next another, and then all will draw a curtain before them, and in the morning cast it all off and almost reveal the very freckles of forest on their faces until you almost feel the breath of the snow fields. Those mountains seem alive, and yet what eternal poise, so to speak. They control the people and the cities. Being treasuries, a row of cities have been built in front of them across the state, with railway spurs out and up into their boxes df silver and gold. Men live up in the high altitudes, if they can stand it; for not all men can. Georgetown is one of the oldest places up there, and the railroad has lo do some lalTcfffiE.' ing and wriggling along a shelf in the sides of Clear Creek gorge or canyon for over thirty miles of track before it lifts itself up to above 9,000 feet to this picturesque little valley. The rapid ascent makes one’s breathing machinery feel unequal to the task. One’s lungs are suddenly not big enough. It Is well enough to istop off at Georgetown before the train begins climbing on the corkscrew plan, as It does just above there, for you to practice on that word "altitude" for a few days. It Is used nearly as much as “the,” “Is” and “was," and completely displaces “north,”' “south," •east" and "west.” • Be it remembered, at this point, up here one never sees a mountain! Colorado "has her back up,” and what, you see of a great mountain Is merely a slight Irregularity In the vertebral line, for even while you are In a canyon you are on a mountain top over 9,000 feet high. So, as you are on a 30-story sky-scraper (very real scrapers of the sky these), a 40-story ohe only looks Hke a ten-story. And you have to be told that here within sight are a half-dozen monarchs of the Rockies two and a half miles high. Bo

I say'-the Rockies are hot a sight; they are an experience. You climb a six-story mountain, thinking it is the top, and, behold, when you arrive, there stands a 15-story one that deceives in the same way, until one exclaims at sight of a 25-story one beyond it. With accumulated astonishment your next climb reveals a 40story one beyond that, and —but I anticipate. Accompanying these experiences are the foaming, roaring torrents of purest marbly water, tumbling over gray and pink granite, quartz of white with its loads of silver, lead and gold, gre&rish cliffs of pprphery of all imaginable shapes a.nd sizes; beautiful cedars growing out of the rocks, and mosts of mountain flowers like great rugs; wondrous, changing scenes, indeed, until it seems as though one might be overcome by such a flood of new experiences. At 7 o’clock one morning—it was the last day of July—a party of three ladies and escorts mounted horses for a trip to the highest wagon road in the world, the one that crosses the roof gable of America at Argentine pass. I was one of the party. Caught In Storm. It was about twelve miles up the left gulch of the canyon and nearly 5,000 feet above Georgetown, 13,200 feet, to be exact. Winding slowly up the road along the base of mountains on either side, we crossed and recrossed the roaring waters. A pocket barometer registered our ascent in feet. Mines and concentrating works were passed, and glorious patches of mountain flowers, wonderful in their purity of color and va.st variety—a very fur of flowers, often growing right on the rocks from little cups of soil. Now and then we got a dwarf mountain strawberry which exceeded -the.ordinary.Qne dn. as the dwarf gooseberry exceeded the lowland puckerer in sourness —which is saying much. Up and on we go, until 12,000 feet is registered. Off there is Pike’s peak, half way across the state, with a storm on one side, the upper half of which is plainly snow and the lower half rain. Off back of us, beyond many a mountain, lie the plains of eastern Colorado in the sunshine, while up the valley come rain clouds, shedding their brush-like rain below—far back just above Georgetown. Off to our left, as we look back, the “rain” is snowing on the top of the range miles away. It is wonderful! But, hark! H thunders above us just over the range! It is so cold we add a raincoat to our overcoat, for plainly we are in for a snowstorm; for be it remembered a thunderstorm up here is always a snowstorm.

Up, up, only a little farther. More thunder. “Look!” cries one, “the storm is coming this way!” Up, up, 13,000 feet —only 800 feet more. “Oooo! but it Is cold!” exclaims another tenderfoot. The electricity begins to snap on the ears of our horses and my horse distinctly doesn’t like it. The first to reach the “pass” and behold the view beyond was Mr. L . and hia cry of "Wonderful!” spurred us on. The horses gathered about him, showed great fear, and shook their heads vigorously, and their hair actually stood oh end —a funny sight. Look at Mr. L 's Read!" some onp called out, and to our amazement his hair was on end, too! Miss J—i l —’s bair raised her hat fully an Inch In its efforts to stand up! From the point of every horse’s ears came a sound like a singing flame. As the rest of us came up we all had the same experiences amid gales of laughter that was suddenly stilled by the marvelous sight that we beheld beyond the range.

ONE VIEW OF THE BACKBONE