A More
Successful Ascent Of The Peak Was Never Made, And I Would Not Now
Exchange My Memories Of Its Perfect Beauty And Extraordinary
Sublimity For Any Other Experience Of Mountaineering In Any Part
Of The World.
Yesterday snow fell on the summit, and it will be
inaccessible for eight months to come.
I. L. B.
Letter VIII
Estes Park - Big game - "Parks" in Colorado - Magnificent
scenery - Flowers and pines - An awful road - Our log
cabin - Griffith Evans - A miniature world - Our topics - A
night alarm - A skunk - Morning glories - Daily routine - The
panic - "Wait for the wagon" - A musical evening.
ESTES PARK, COLORADO TERRITORY, October 2.
How time has slipped by I do not know. This is a glorious
region, and the air and life are intoxicating. I live mainly out
of doors and on horseback, wear my half-threadbare Hawaiian
dress, sleep sometimes under the stars on a bed of pine boughs,
ride on a Mexican saddle, and hear once more the low music of my
Mexican spurs. "There's a stranger! Heave arf a brick at him!"
is said by many travelers to express the feeling of the new
settlers in these Territories. This is not my experience in my
cheery mountain home. How the rafters ring as I write with songs
and mirth, while the pitch-pine logs blaze and crackle in the
chimney, and the fine snow dust drives in through the chinks and
forms mimic snow wreaths on the floor, and the wind raves and
howls and plays among the creaking pine branches and snaps them
short off, and the lightning plays round the blasted top of
Long's Peak, and the hardy hunters divert themselves with the
thought that when I go to bed I must turn out and face the storm!
You will ask, "What is Estes Park?" This name, with the quiet
Midland Countries' sound, suggests "park palings" well lichened,
a lodge with a curtseying woman, fallow deer, and a Queen Anne
mansion.
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