The Book of the National Parks Part 7

The King of Trees is of royal lineage. The patient searchers in the rocks of old have traced his ancestry unknown millions of years, back to the forests of the Cretaceous Period. His was Viking stock from arctic zones where trees can live no more.

To-day he links all human history. The identical tree around which gather thousands of human courtiers every year emerged, a seedling, while Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem. No man knows how old his predecessors were when finally they sank into death--mighty fall! But John Muir counted four thousand rings in the trunk of one fallen giant, who must have lived while Pharaoh still held captive the Children of Israel.

The General Sherman Tree of the Giant Forest, the oldest living thing to-day, so far as I have been able to ascertain, probably has seen thirty-six hundred years. It is evident to the unlearned observer that, while mature, he is long short of the turn of life. A thousand years from now he still may be the earth's biggest and oldest living thing; how much beyond that none may venture to predict.

Picture, now, the Giant Forest, largest of the several sequoia groves in the Sequoia National Park. You have entered, say, in the dusk of the night before, and after breakfast wander planless among the trees. On every side rise the huge pines and firs, their dark columns springing from the tangled brush to support the cathedral roof above. Here an enormous purplish-red column draws and holds your astonished eye. It is a gigantic thing in comparison with its monster neighbors; it glows among their dull columns; it is clean and spotless amid their mosshung trunks; branchless, it disappears among their upper foliage, hinting at steeple heights above. Yet your guide tells you that this tree is small; that its diameter is less than twenty feet; that in age it is a youngster of only two thousand years! Wait, he tells you, till you see the General Sherman Tree's thirty-six and a half feet of diameter; wait till you see the hundreds, yes thousands, which surpa.s.s this infant!

But you heed him not, for you see another back among those sugar pines!

Yes, and there's another. And there on the left are two or three in a clump! Back in the dim cathedral aisles are reddish glows which must mean still others. Your heart is beating with a strange emotion. You look up at the enormous limbs bent at right angles, at the canopy of feathery foliage hanging in ten thousand huge plumes. You cry aloud for the sheer joy of this great thing, and plunge into the forest's heart.

The Giant Forest contains several thousand sequoia trees of large size, and many young trees. You see these small ones on every hand, erect, sharply pointed, giving in every line a vivid impression of quivering, bounding life. Later on, as they emerge above the roof of the forest, for some of them are more than three hundred feet high, they lose their sharp ambitious tops; they become gracefully rounded. Springing from seed less than a quarter of an inch in diameter, they tend, like their cousins the redwoods, to grow in groups, and these groups tend to grow in groves. But there are scattering individuals in every grove, and many small isolated groves in the Sierra. The Giant Forest is the largest grove of greatest trees. The General Grant Grove, in a small national park of its own, near by, is the second grove in size and importance; its central figure is the General Grant Tree, second in size and age to the General Sherman Tree.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by S.H. Willard_

BULL FROG LAKE, PROPOSED ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK

Along the crest of the Sierra extends a region of lofty cirques and innumerable glacier-fed lakelets]

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNDER A GIANT SEQUOIA

From right to left: Benjamin Ide Wheeler, William Loeb, Jr., Nicholas Murray Butler, John Muir, Surgeon-General Rixey, U.S.N., Theodore Roosevelt, then President, George C. Pardee, and William H. Moody]

The dimensions of the greatest trees are astonishing. Glance at this table:

----------------------------------------------- HEIGHT DIAMETER NAME FEET FEET ----------------------------------------------- GIANT FOREST GROVE General Sherman 279.9 36.5 Abraham Lincoln 270 31 William McKinley 291 28 MUIR GROVE Dalton 292 27 GARFIELD GROVE California 260 30 GENERAL GRANT GROVE General Grant 264 35 George Washington 255 29 -----------------------------------------------

The Theodore Roosevelt Tree, which has not been measured at this writing, is one of the n.o.blest of all, perfect in form and color, abounding in the glory of young maturity.

To help realization at home of the majesty of the General Sherman Tree, mark its base diameter, thirty-six and a half feet, plainly against the side of some building, preferably a church with a steeple and neighboring trees; then measure two hundred and eighty feet, its height, upon the ground at right angles to the church; then stand on that spot and, facing the church, imagine the trunk rising, tapering slightly, against the building's side and the sky above it; then slowly lift your eyes until you are looking up into the sky at an angle of forty-five degrees, this to fix its height were it growing in front of the church.

Imagine its lowest branches, each far thicker than the trunks of eastern elms and oaks, pushing horizontally out at a height above ground of a hundred and fifty feet, which is higher than the tops of most of the full-grown trees of our eastern forests. Imagine these limbs bent horizontally at right angles, like huge elbows, as though holding its green mantle close about its form. Imagine the upper branches nearly bare, shattered perhaps by lightning. And imagine its crown of foliage, dark yellowish-green, hanging in enormous graceful plumes.

This is the King of Trees.

IV

THE HEART OF THE ROCKIES

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, NORTH CENTRAL COLORADO. AREA, 398 SQUARE MILES

I

The Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and the Cascade Range of California, Oregon, and Washington have each three national parks which fully represent their kind and quality. The great central system of the United States, the Rocky Mountains, which also possess three national parks, are represented in kind by only one, for Yellowstone is an exceptional volcanic interlude, and Glacier is the chance upheaval of shales and limestones from a period antedating the granite Rockies by many millions of years; neither in any sense exhibits the nature and scenic quality of the backbone of our continent.

This is one of the reasons for the extraordinary distinction of the reservation appropriately called the Rocky Mountain National Park, namely that it is the only true example of the continental mountain system in the catalogue of our national parks. It is well, therefore, to lay the foundations for a sound comprehension of its differentiating features.

The Rocky Mountains, which began to rise at the close of the Cretaceous Period at a rate so slow that geologists think they are making a pace to-day as rapid as their maximum, extend from the plateau of New Mexico northwesterly until they merge into the mountains of eastern Alaska. In the United States physiographers consider them in two groups, the Northern Rockies and the Southern Rockies, the point of division being the elevated Wyoming Basin. There are numerous ranges, known, like the Wasatch Mountains, by different names, which nevertheless are consistent parts of the Rocky Mountain System.

The Rockies attain their most imposing ma.s.s and magnificence in their southern group, culminating in Colorado. So stupendous is this heaping together of granitic ma.s.ses that in Colorado alone are found forty-two of the fifty-five named peaks in the United States which attain the alt.i.tude of fourteen thousand feet. Of the others, twelve are in the Sierra of California, and one, Mount Rainier, in Washington. Mount Elbert, in Colorado, our second highest peak, rises within eighty-two feet of the height of California's Mount Whitney, our first in rank; Colorado's Mount Ma.s.sive attains an alt.i.tude only four feet less than Washington's Mount Rainier, which ranks third. In point of ma.s.s, one seventh of Colorado rises above ten thousand feet of alt.i.tude. The state contains three hundred and fifty peaks above eleven thousand feet of alt.i.tude, two hundred and twenty peaks above twelve thousand feet, and a hundred and fifty peaks above thirteen thousand feet; besides the forty-two named peaks which exceed fourteen thousand feet, there are at least three others which are unnamed.

Geologists call the Rockies young, by which they mean anything, say, from five to twenty million years. They are more or less contemporary with the Sierra. Like the Sierra, the mountains we see to-day are not the first; several times their ranges have uplifted upon wrecks of former ranges, which had yielded to the a.s.saults of frost and rain.

Before they first appeared, parts of the Eastern Appalachians had paralleled our eastern sea coast for many million years. The Age of Mammals had well dawned before they became a feature in a landscape which previously had been a mid-continental sea.

II

The Front Range, carrying the continental divide, is a gnarled and jagged rampart of snow-splashed granite facing the eastern plains, from which its grim summits may be seen for many miles. Standing out before it like captains in front of gray ranks at parade rise three conspicuous mountains, Longs Peak, fifty miles northwest of Denver, Mount Evans, west of Denver, and Pikes Peak, seventy miles to the south. Longs Peak is directly connected with the continental divide by a series of jagged cliffs. Mount Evans is farther away. Pikes Peak stands sentinel-like seventy-five miles east of the range, a gigantic monadnock, remainder and reminder of a former range long ages worn away.

Though many ma.s.sive mountains of greater alt.i.tude lie farther west, the Front Range for many reasons is representative of the Rockies' n.o.blest.

To represent them fully, the national park should include the three sentinel peaks and their neighborhoods, and it is earnestly hoped that the day will come when Congress will recognize this need. At this writing only the section of greatest variety and magnificence, the nearly four hundred square miles of which Longs Peak is the climax, has been thus ent.i.tled. In fact, even this was unfortunately curtailed in the making, the straight southern boundary having been arbitrarily drawn through the range at a point of sublimity, throwing out of the park the St. Vrain Glaciers which form one of the region's wildest and n.o.blest spectacles, and Arapaho Peak and its glaciers which in several respects const.i.tute a climax in Rocky Mountain scenery.

Thus carelessly cropped, despoiled of the completeness which Nature meant it to possess, nevertheless the Rocky Mountain National Park is a reservation of distinguished charm and beauty. It straddles the continental divide, which bisects it lengthwise, north and south. The western slopes rise gently to the divide; at the divide, the eastern front drops in a precipice several thousand feet deep, out of which frosts, rains, glaciers and streams have gouged gigantic gulfs and granite-bound vales and canyons, whose intervening cliffs are battlemented walls and monoliths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by Wiswall Brothers_

ESTES PARK PLATEAU, LOOKING EAST

Showing the village and the foothills, which are remnants of a former great range, now almost washed away by erosion; Rocky Mountain National Park]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by Wiswall Brothers_

FRONT RANGE OF THE ROCKIES FROM BIERSTADT LAKE

From right to left: Flattop Mountain, Tyndall Glacier, Hallett Peak, Otis Peak, Andrews Glacier]

As if these features were not enough to differentiate this national park from any other, Nature has provided still another element of popularity and distinction. East of this splendid rampart spreads a broad area of rolling plateau, carpeted with wild flowers, edged and dotted with luxuriant groves of pine, spruce, fir, and aspen, and diversified with hills and craggy mountains, carved rock walls, long forest-grown moraines and picturesque ravines; a stream-watered, lake-dotted summer and winter pleasure paradise of great size, bounded on the north and west by snow-spattered monsters, and on the east and south by craggy wooded foothills, only less in size, and no less in beauty than the leviathans of the main range. Here is summer living room enough for several hundred thousand sojourners from whose comfortable camps and hotels the wild heart of the Rockies may be visited afoot or on horseback between early breakfast and late supper at home.

This plateau has been known to summer visitors for many years under the t.i.tles of several settlements; Moraine Park, Horseshoe Park, and Longs Peak, each had its hotels long before the national park was created; Estes Park and Allen's Park on the east side, and Grand Lake on the west side lie just outside the park boundaries, purposely excluded because of their considerable areas of privately owned land. Estes Park, the princ.i.p.al village and the distributing centre of all incoming routes from the east, is the Eastern Gateway; Grand Lake is the Western Gateway.

And still there is another distinction, one which will probably always hold for Rocky Mountain its present great lead in popularity. That is its position nearer to the middle of the country than other great national parks, and its accessibility from large centres of population.

Denver, which claims with some justice the t.i.tle of Gateway to the National Parks, meaning of course the eastern gateway to the western parks, is within thirty hours by rail from Chicago and St. Louis, through one or other of which most travellers from the east find it convenient to reach the west. It is similarly conveniently located for touring motorists, with whom all the national parks are becoming ever more popular. From Denver several railroads lead to east-side towns, from which the park is reached by motor stages through the foothills, and a motor stage line runs directly from Denver to Estes Park, paralleling the range. The west side is reached through Granby.

III

Entry to the park by any route is dramatic. If the visitor comes the all-motor way through Ward he picks up the range at Arapaho Peak, and follows it closely for miles. If he comes by any of the rail routes, his motor stage emerges from the foothills upon a sudden spectacle of magnificence--the snowy range, its highest summits crowned with cloud, looming upon the horizon across the peaceful plateau. By any route the appearance of the range begins a panorama of ever-changing beauty and inspiration, whose progress will outlive many a summer's stay.

Having settled himself in one of the hotels or camps of the east-side plateau, the visitor faces the choice between two practical ways of enjoying himself. He may, as the majority seem to prefer, spend his weeks in the simple recreations familiar in our eastern hill and country resorts; he may motor a little, walk a little, fish a little in the Big Thompson and its tributaries, read and botanize a little in the meadows and groves, golf a little on the excellent courses, climb a little on the lesser mountains, and dance or play bridge in hotel parlors at night. Or else he may avail himself of the extraordinary opportunity which Nature offers him in the mountains which spring from his comfortable plateau, the opportunity of entering into Nature's very workshop and of studying, with her for his teacher, the inner secrets and the mighty examples of creation.

In all our national parks I have wondered at the contentment of the mult.i.tude with the less when the greater, and such a greater, was there for the taking. But I ceased to criticize the so-called popular point of view when I realized that its princ.i.p.al cause was ignorance of the wealth within grasp rather than deliberate choice of the more commonplace; instead, I write this book, hoping that it may help the cause of the greater pleasure. Especially is the Rocky Mountain National Park the land of opportunity because of its accessibility, and of the ease with which its inmost sanctuaries may be entered, examined, and appreciated. The story is disclosed at every step. In fact the revelation begins in the foothills on the way in from the railroad, for the red iron-stained cliffs seen upon their eastern edges are remainders of former Rocky Mountains which disappeared by erosion millions of years ago. The foothills themselves are remnants of mountains which once were much loftier than now, and the picturesque canyon of the Big Thompson, through which it may have been your good fortune to enter the park, is the stream-cut outlet of a lake or group of lakes which once covered much of the national park plateau.

Summer life on the plateau is as effective as a tonic. The alt.i.tude varies from seven to nine thousand feet; Rocky Mountain's valley bottoms are higher than the summits of many peaks of celebrity elsewhere. On every hand stretch miles of tumbled meadows and craggy cliffs. Many are the excellent roads, upon which cl.u.s.ter, at intervals of miles, groups of hotels and camps. Here one may choose his own fashion of living, for these hostelries range from the most formal and luxurious hotel to the simplest collection of tents or log cabins around a central log dining structure. Some of these camps are picturesque, the growth of years from the original log hut. Some are equipped with modern comforts; others are as primitive as their beginnings. All the larger resorts have stables of riding horses, for riding is the fashion even with those who do not venture into the mountains.