Illustrations

[Long's Peak from the East]Frontispiece
[A Man with a History]6
[The Crest of the Continent in Winter, 13,000 Feet above Sea-Level]16
[A Snow-Slide Track]20
[A Veteran Western Yellow Pine]32
[A Beaver-House]58
[A Beaver-Dam in Winter]63
[Lake Odessa]76
[On the Heights]84
[A Storm on the Rockies]94
[Long's Peak from the Summit of Mt. Meeker]100
[On the Tip-Top of Long's Peak]110
[A Miner on a Return Horse]116
[Scotch near Timber-Line]132
[The Cloud-Capped Continental Divide]144
[Ptarmigan]158
[Summer at an Altitude of 12,000 Feet]178
[A Typical Lodge-Pole Forest]184
[Aspens]204
[A Grove of Silver Spruce]208
[Ouray, Colorado, a Typical Mining Town]218
[Estes Park and the Big Thompson River from the Top of Mt. Olympus]238
[In the Uncompahgre Mountains]244
[A Grass-Plot among Engelmann Spruce]250

Colorado Snow Observer

Colorado Snow Observer

"Where are you going?" was the question asked me one snowy winter day. After hearing that I was off on a camping-trip, to be gone several days, and that the place where I intended to camp was in deep snow on the upper slopes of the Rockies, the questioners laughed heartily. Knowing me, some questioners realized that I was in earnest, and all that they could say in the nature of argument or appeal was said to cause me to "forego the folly." But I went, and in the romance of a new world—on the Rockies in winter—I lived intensely through ten strong days and nights, and gave to my life new and rare experiences. Afterwards I made other winter excursions, all of which were stirring and satisfactory. The recollection of these winter experiences is as complete and exhilarating as any in the vista of my memory.

Some years after my first winter camping-trip, I found myself holding a strange position,—that of