At Golden City I Parted For A Time From
My Faithful Pony, As Clear Creek Canyon, Which Leads From It To
Idaho, Is Entirely Monopolized By A Narrow-Gauge Railroad, And Is
Inaccessible For Horses Or Mules.
To be without a horse in these
mountains is to be reduced to complete helplessness.
My great
wish was to see Green Lake, situated near the timber line above
Georgetown (said to be the highest town in the United States), at
a height of 9,000 feet. A single day took me from the heat of
summer into the intense cold of winter.
Golden City by daylight showed its meanness and belied its name.
It is ungraded, with here and there a piece of wooden sidewalk,
supported on posts, up to which you ascend by planks. Brick,
pine, and log houses are huddled together, every other house is a
saloon, and hardly a woman is to be seen. My landlady apologized
for the very exquisite little bedroom which she gave me by saying
"it was not quite as she would like it, but she had never had a
lady in her house before." The young "lady" who waited at
breakfast said, "I've been thinking about you, and I'm certain
sure you're an authoress." The day, as usual, was glorious.
Think of November half through and scarcely even a cloud in the
sky, except the vermilion cloudlets which accompany the sun at
his rising and setting! They say that winter never "sets in"
there in the Foot Hills, but that there are spells of cold,
alternating with bright, hot weather, and that the snow never
lies on the ground so as to interfere with the feed of cattle.
Golden City rang with oaths and curses, especially at the depot.
Americans are given over to the most atrocious swearing, and the
blasphemous use of our Savior's name is peculiarly revolting.
Golden City stands at the mouth of Toughcuss, otherwise Clear
Creek Canyon, which many people think the grandest scenery in the
mountains, as it twists and turns marvellously, and its
stupendous sides are nearly perpendicular, while farther progress
is to all appearance continually blocked by great masses of rock
and piles of snow-covered mountains. Unfortunately, its sides
have been almost entirely denuded of timber, mining operations
consuming any quantity of it. The narrow-gauge, steel-grade
railroad, which runs up the canyon for the convenience of the
rich mining districts of Georgetown, Black Hawk, and Central
City, is a curiosity of engineering. The track has partly been
blasted out of the sides of the canyon, and has partly been
"built" by making a bed of stones in the creek itself, and laying
the track across them. I have never seen such churlishness and
incivility as in the officials of that railroad and the state
lines which connect with it, or met with such preposterous
charges. They have handsome little cars on the route, but though
the passengers paid full fare, they put us into a baggage car
because the season was over, and in order to see anything I was
obliged to sit on the floor at the door.
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