Then Below,
Where The Trail Was Locked Into A Deep Canyon Where There Was
Scarcely Room For It And The River, There Was A Beauty Of An-
Other Kind In Solemn Gloom.
There the stream curved and twisted
marvellously, widening into shallows, narrowing into deep boiling
eddies, with pyramidal firs and
The beautiful silver spruce
fringing its banks, and often falling across it in artistic
grace, the gloom chill and deep, with only now and then a light
trickling through the pines upon the cold snow, when suddenly
turning round I saw behind, as if in the glory of an eternal
sunset, those flaming and fantastic peaks. The effect of the
combination of winter and summer was singular. The trail ran on
the north side the whole time, and the snow lay deep and pure
white, while not a wreath of it lay on the south side, where
abundant lawns basked in the warm sun.
The pitch pine, with its monotonous and somewhat rigid form, had
disappeared; the white pine became scarce, both being displayed
by the slim spires and silvery green of the miniature silver
spruce. Valley and canyon were passed, the flaming ranges were
left behind, the upper altitudes became grim and mysterious. I
crossed a lake on the ice, and then came on a park surrounded by
barren contorted hills, overtopped by snow mountains. There, in
some brushwood, we crossed a deepish stream on the ice, which
gave way, and the fearful cold of the water stiffened my limbs
for the rest of the ride.
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