"Around the Circle": One Thousand Miles Through the Rocky Mountains

by Denver and Rio Grande Railroad Company

The stage ride forms one of the most attractive features of this most attractive journey. Lasting only two hours, passing over the summits of ranges and through the depths of cañons, the tourist will find this a welcome variation to his method of travel and a great relief and recreation. The old fashioned stage, with all its romantic associations, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. A year or two more and it will have disappeared, except in rare instances, from Colorado. Here, in the midst of some of the grandest scenery on the continent, the blue sky above and the fresh, pure, exhilarating mountain air sending the blood bounding through one's veins, to clamber into a Concord coach and be whirled along a splendidly-constructed road, costing in some instances $40,000 a mile in its construction, to behold the grandest of Nature's handiwork, and to be in such close communion with the everlasting hills, is surely a novel and delightful experience.

The scenery on this journey between Silverton and Ouray is of the greatest magnificence. This is especially true of that portion of the route traversed by stage. The Silverton and Ouray toll road has long been noted for its attractions in the way of scenery, the triangular mass of Mount Abraham's towers to the left, while the road winds around the curves of the hills with the sinuosity of a mountain brook. The scene from the bridge over Bear Creek is one which once beheld can never be forgotten. Directly under the bridge plunges a cataract to a depth of 253 feet, forming a most noteworthy and impressive scene. The toll road passes through one of the greatest mining regions in the world, and the fame of Red Mountain is well deserved both from the number and richness of its mines. Before Ouray is reached, the road passes through Uncompahgre Cañon. Here the roadbed has been blasted from the solid rock wall of the gorge, and a scene similar in nature and rivaling in grandeur that of Animas Cañon is beheld.

MOUNT ABRAM, OURAY TOLL ROAD.

Ouray is one of the most beautifully situated towns to be found anywhere. Its scenery is idyllic. The village is cradled in a lovely valley surrounded by rugged mountains. The situation of the town is thus vividly described by Ernest Ingersoll in the "Crest of the Continent": "The valley in which the town is built is at an elevation of about 7,500 feet above the sea, and is pear-shaped, its greatest width being not more than half a mile, while its length is about twice that, down to the mouth of the cañon. Southward—that is, toward the heart of the main range—stand the two great peaks, Hardin and Hayden. Between is the deep gorge down which the Uncompahgre finds its way; but this is hidden from view by a ridge which walls in the town and cuts off all farther view from it in that direction, save where the triangular top of Mount Abram peers over. Westward are grouped a series of broken ledges, surmounted by greater and more rugged heights. Down between these and the western foot of Mt. Hayden struggles Cañon Creek to join the Uncompahgre, while Oak Creek leaps down a line of cataracts from a notch in the terraced heights through which the quadrangular head of White House Mountain becomes grandly discernible—the easternmost buttress of the wintry Sierra San Miguel.

"At the lower side of the basin, where the path of the river is beset with close cañon walls, the cliffs rise vertically from the level of the village, and bear their forest growth many hundreds of feet above. These mighty walls, two thousand feet high in some places, are of metamorphic rock, and their even stratification simulates courses of well-ordered masonry. Stained by iron, and probably also by manganese, they are a deep red maroon. This color does not lie uniformly, however, but is stronger in some layers than in others, so that the whole face of the cliff is banded horizontally in pale rust color, or dull crimson, or deep and opaque maroon. The western cliff is bare, but on the more frequent ledges of the eastern wall scattered spruces grow, and add to its attractiveness. Yet, as though Nature meant to teach that a bit of motion—a suggestion of glee was needed to relieve the somberness of utter immobility and grandeur, however shapely—she has led to the sunlight, by a crevice in the upper part of the eastern wall that we cannot see, a brisk torrent draining the snowfields of some distant plateau. This little stream, thus beguiled by the fair channel that led it through the spruce woods above, has no time to think of its fate, but is flung out over the sheer precipice eighty feet into the valley below. We see the white ghost of its descending, and always to our ears is murmured the voice of the Naiads who are taking the breathless plunge. Yet by what means the stream reaches that point from above cannot be seen, and the picture is that of a strong jet of water bursting from an orifice through the crimson wall, and falling into rainbow-arched mist and a tangle of grateful foliage that hides its further flowing."

CURRECANTI NEEDLE.

Resuming the railroad journey at Ouray, the traveler will find much to interest him in the run past Ridgway, where the Rio Grande Southern connects with the Denver & Rio Grande, to Montrose, where the main line is again reached, and, with faces turned once more to the eastward, the homeward segment of the "circle" is entered upon, and the greatest wonders of all this wonderful journey lie before. From Cerro Summit a fine view can be had of the Uncompahgre Valley, its river, and the distant peaks of the San Juan and Uncompahgre ranges of mountains. Cimarron Cañon is entered shortly after leaving Cerro Summit, the road following this cañon down Cimarron Creek to where it empties into the Gunnison river. Here begins the tourist's experience in the world-renowned Black Cañon of the Gunnison. The name is a misnomer. There is nothing black about the cañon except the shadows of the towering granite walls. The cliffs themselves show bright and happy colors. Gay contrasts of pink and blue, bright complements of red and maroon, all shades blended and differentiated, dashed on here and there as with the broad, free-handed sweep of some master scenic painter. The scene is varied, kaleidoscopic, constantly changing. Here the train rolls along between frowning and exalted walls: there a stream of water, Chippeta Falls, white as wool, pitches from the brow of a precipice two thousand feet above; yonder a side cañon yawns with capacious mouth as if to engulf us. Now we are in a spacious amphitheater, in the center of which stands a tremendous monument of solid stone, a spire graceful as if hewn by the hand of a Gothic builder, and terminating in a sky-piercing pinnacle. This is the famed "Currecanti Needle." Thus for twenty miles the ever-changing variety of the Black Cañon holds the awe-stricken attention of the traveler. At last the train rolls out into the valley of the Gunnison, and pastoral scenes take the place of the tumultuous grandeur just beheld.

But soon a new marvel demands attention. The ascent of Marshall Pass is just begun. We have just gone through the mountains, now we are to go over them. The Pacific slope is now to be achieved. Two powerful engines puff vigorously and take us spinning up the ringing grooves of this marvelous road, climbing grades of 211 feet to the mile with as much apparent ease as though we were traversing the level plain. What a varied panorama of mountain views meets the gaze, and when the summit is reached. 10,852 feet above the distant sea, the train pauses and the eye sweeps the prospect as far as vision reaches. To the right, fading away into the blue distance, can be seen the serrated range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, snow-covered pyramids of transcendent beauty. To the left towers fire-scarred Mount Ouray, a volcano whose fires died out ages ago, while opposite stands its companion peak, Mount Shaveno. Beneath is the pathway of our ascent, four lines in view, each one an ascending circle of our tortuous upward journey.