DODGE’S BLUFF, CAÑON OF GRAND RIVER.
GRAND LAKE, MIDDLE PARK.
Strange it is that near the shores of this lake the water is singularly crystalline, while towards the center it is dark as midnight. The lake is also a treacherous body, subject to appalling disturbments from inrushing storms that first gather on the surrounding peaks and then swoop down to break with sudden and appalling force upon its expansive bosom. No wonder that from time immemorial, the Ute Indians have regarded the lake with superstitious fears, and tell ghostly stories of its treachery. Upon one occasion, as an old Indian related, a band of Utes were encamped upon its shores, pleasantly and profitably engaged in trout fishing. They had their women and children with them, and having prepared for a stay of some weeks, they had rafts made of pine logs, and it was from these they did their fishing. While thus engaged they were attacked by a war party of Arrapahoes, their implacable enemies. The Utes committed their wives and children to the rafts, which they pushed far out into the lake, and then engaged with their ferocious adversaries, whom, after a desperate battle, they repulsed. During the fight, however, a storm arose on the lake, which quickly lashed the water into such fury that the piercing cries of the helpless women and children were scarcely audible above the breaking waves and screech of savage wind. When the Utes turned from pursuing their enemies, they saw that a more dangerous foe had attacked their helpless ones. The rafts were quickly broken up by wild surges of the infuriated lake, and every woman and child was swallowed up. The Indians, whose minds are peculiarly susceptible to impressions of a supernatural character, were prompt to attribute the calamity to a manifestation of the Great Spirit’s anger, and since that fatal event they have regarded the lake as being the haunt of water demons, and no Indian has since that calamitous incident dared to venture upon its bosom.
From Grand Lake we followed its outlet some twenty miles south, and entered a beautiful valley of Grand River, where the grass was long and green, the sky a beautiful indigo-blue, and the mountain scenery around us was magnificent. A marvelously clear atmosphere made the distance deceptive, so that peaks which were fifty miles away appeared to be scarcely five. From one point of observation we swept the ragged horizon with our enraptured eyes, and plainly perceived a battalion of well-known mountains that locked their massive arms around Middle Park like loving guardsmen. Roundtop lifted its head to gaze into the mysterious depths of Grand Lake; and far beyond, Long’s Peak, the great gray sentinel of Estes Park, loomed up like a cloud gathering inspiration from the heavens. A little to the right, Elk Mountain projects its snowy cap far into the sky and looks up into the face of its taller kinsmen. Following the waving lines of peak upon peak, our eyes caught sight of a pass through which a river had found its way, and behind the interval were the faded fronts of Medicine Bow range. A little further to the left there is another rent in the continuity of mountains, which closer inspection discovers to us is Gore’s Cañon of Grand River, where it leaves the park through a fissure made in the eruptive rocks quite three miles long, and in places nearly 2,000 feet deep. So perpendicular are these cliffs that a person standing upon the dizzy brink may drop a stone into the rushing river below.
GORE’S CAÑON, MIDDLE PARK.
If we look towards the southeast, across a stretch of sage-brush, we see the peak of heroic Powell, the most majestic elevation in the Park range, singular not only by reason of its cloud-piercing height, but also because it looks through the hazy distance like a mountain of sapphire, while behind it are lofty stretches of peaks with straggling locks of white, where snow has gathered in the wrinkles of their cheeks.