Very Fair It Was,
After The Brown And Burning Plains, And The Variety Was Endless.
Cotton-Wood Trees Were Green
And bright, aspens shivered in gold
tremulousness, wild grape-vines trailed their lemon-colored
foliage along the ground, and the
Virginia creeper hung its
crimson sprays here and there, lightening up green and gold into
glory. Sometimes from under the cool and bowery shade of the
colored tangle we passed into the cool St. Vrain, and then were
wedged between its margin and lofty cliffs and terraces of
incredibly staring, fantastic rocks, lined, patched, and splashed
with carmine, vermilion, greens of all tints, blue, yellow,
orange, violet, deep crimson, coloring that no artist would dare
to represent, and of which, in sober prose, I scarcely dare tell.
Long's wonderful peaks, which hitherto had gleamed above the
green, now disappeared, to be seen no more for twenty miles. We
entered on an ascending valley, where the gorgeous hues of the
rocks were intensified by the blue gloom of the pitch pines, and
then taking a track to the north-west, we left the softer world
behind, and all traces of man and his works, and plunged into
the Rocky Mountains.
There were wonderful ascents then up which I led my horse; wild
fantastic views opening up continually, a recurrence of
surprises; the air keener and purer with every mile, the
sensation of loneliness more singular. A tremendous ascent among
rocks and pines to a height of 9,000 feet brought us to a passage
seven feet wide through a wall of rock, with an abrupt descent of
2,000 feet, and a yet higher ascent beyond.
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