From The Dry, Buff Grass
Of Estes Park We Turned Off Up A Trail On The Side Of A Pine-
Hung
gorge, up a steep pine-clothed hill, down to a small valley, rich
in fine, sun-cured hay about
Eighteen inches high, and enclosed
by high mountains whose deepest hollow contains a lily-covered
lake, fitly named "The Lake of the Lilies." Ah, how magical its
beauty was, as it slept in silence, while THERE the dark pines
were mirrored motionless in its pale gold, and HERE the great
white lily cups and dark green leaves rested on amethyst-colored
water!
From this we ascended into the purple gloom of great pine forests
which clothe the skirts of the mountains up to a height of about
11,000 feet, and from their chill and solitary depths we had
glimpses of golden atmosphere and rose-lit summits, not of "the
land very far off," but of the land nearer now in all its
grandeur, gaining in sublimity by nearness - glimpses, too,
through a broken vista of purple gorges, of the illimitable
Plains lying idealized in the late sunlight, their baked, brown
expanse transfigured into the likeness of a sunset sea rolling
infinitely in waves of misty gold.
We rode upwards through the gloom on a steep trail blazed through
the forest, all my intellect concentrated on avoiding being
dragged off my horse by impending branches, or having the
blankets badly torn, as those of my companions were, by sharp
dead limbs, between which there was hardly room to pass - the
horses breathless, and requiring to stop every few yards, though
their riders, except myself, were afoot.
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