But we have now reached the backbone of the divide and our train starts down the western grade, circling like a hawk out of the sky. Over immense fills, through deep cuts, across bridges, following a swiftly-flowing stream, until at length we gain the level valley and go dashing away to Graymont, on the way to Idaho Springs and Georgetown. To avoid tunneling in crossing the divide, the railroad winds around the mountain elevations, up a steep grade, over a way that has been blasted out of the eternal rocks, until from away up the lofty sides the traveler may look upon a scene of marvelous beauty and ruggedness that fades into indistinctness miles below. Leaning out of the car window we view a wondrous panorama, and pause directly to bring our cameras into use, that the scene may be caught and held on paper. There on one side of the depths is Devil’s Gate, in close proximity, as it seems, to Bridal Veil Falls, where the clear mountain stream plunges over a precipice of great height to join the gamboling creek that rushes away on its errand hundreds of feet below. There, too, is a spider’s web of steel, eighty-six feet high, that has served as a passage-way for our train across a chasm 300 feet wide, whose bottom can scarcely be distinguished from our lofty eminence; but we see that the track makes a complete loop, and that the road parallels itself, at a constantly increasing grade, no less than three times. All the while that we are winding around and crossing our own track, Georgetown continues visible, but it is dwarfed by the distance to the appearance of a prairie-dog village.
CHALK CLIFFS, CLEAR CREEK CAÑON.
The picturesqueness of the route now changes from wild scenery of lofty mountain and the dark awesomeness of deep cañon, to a park-like landscape, through tillable lands, and on to Silver Plume, a great feat of mining engineering, and beautiful beyond description. Gray’s Peak rises like a giant phantom a few miles beyond, and becomes a charming signet in the ring of park and town of Graymont that lies near its feet.
Returning east a distance of twenty miles, a junction is reached at Fork’s Creek, where another branch of the Union Pacific leads to Central City and Black Hawk. Here a marvelous thing is to be seen: The two towns are only a mile apart, measured by a straight line, yet so fearfully rugged is the territory to be traversed that the distance by rail between the places is four miles, and this interval is covered by means of a “Switch Back,” so called because of the tortuous route and the extraordinary grades. All along this vicinity are famous mines, and a wealth of mining machinery, that converts the country into a maze of industry, and the mountains into smoking mills and cornucopias of silver. In this mountainous region all roads seem to radiate from Denver, and hence to reach other charming scenery by means of our camera car, it was necessary to return again for a trip to Gunnison, which is on the South Park Branch. But in order to facilitate our work it was decided to divide our party, so that one photographer might proceed to Gunnison, while the other two took the northwest route to Estes and Middle Park, where a larger amount of work was to be done, and which could be reached only by stage.
A VIEW OF PLATTE CAÑON.
