For it will finally come to be understood that of all the mountain kingdoms she stands first, not even Switzerland and her Alps offering more than a fair comparison. That crescent chain which forms the chiefest attraction of Central Europe covers altogether an area of about 95,000 square miles. Its crowning peak, Mont Blanc, is 15,784 feet high, the most famous and most often named of the mountains of the modern world. But Colorado has many peaks lacking little of this height, and they stand amid others much higher than, but not nearly so bleak, as those the Alpine chain is made up of. The famous Jungfrau is 13,393 feet high. The Matterhorn is still lower. Vegetation ceases at a lesser height than it does in Colorado. The pass of the great St. Bernard is 8,170 feet high. Marshall Pass in Colorado is 10,850 feet, and is climbed every day by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and not much said about it. Veta Pass is over 9,000 feet high—another railway station. The town of Leadville, a familiar residence for twelve thousand people, is 10,200 feet above the sea. Some of the beautiful and famous parks of Colorado have their lowest depths higher than the average height of the Alpine chain.
Vegetation is less affected by the altitude here than it is in Europe. Cattle live all the year on indigenous grasses at elevations and in pastures that figures of height would relegate to the woodchuck and the mountain goat. Vegetables and fruits are raised in abundance in mountain valleys wherein in Central Europe the vast, slow-crawling glacier would lie. Timber line, and just above it eternal snow, mark 6,000 feet in the Northern Alps. In Colorado 10,000 is not in all cases the limit of vegetation, and the perpetual snow line is fixed at 11,000 feet, though on many heights almost unknown.
In Estes Park—James’ Ranch—Distant View.
Nor is the impression correct that Colorado is all mountainous. It is all of the mountains, mountainlike, but at least one diversifying feature is the parks. It is a Colorado name for mountain-fenced enclosures. No other mountain country has it, neither has any other the especial feature. The Colorado “park” is distinctive and remarkable. Many of them are of small size, by which it must be understood that they are perhaps no bigger than Rhode Island or Delaware. Those four that are named on the map are at least as large as some of the more important of the New England states. These are North Park, Middle Park, South Park and San Luis Park in the extreme south.
North Park lies near the northern boundary of the state, and is the basin into which run the numerous small streams which gather to make a beginning for the North Platte River, which runs all the way across Nebraska and into the Missouri a few miles south of Omaha; a good twelve hundred miles as it turns. It was a famous game country, and now its streams abound in the dainty-tasting mountain fish. Its surface is alternatively meadow and forest. It is the highest in elevation of the four great parks, and one of the loveliest regions in the world.
Middle Park lies next this to the south, separated from it by a range of mountains; one of the numerous “Continental Divides,” and big enough to be that, as are all others of the same name. Here rise the waters that finally flow into the Colorado of the West, and at last reach the Gulf of California; those that flow east, as the Platte, rising on the other side of the range. This park is fifty miles wide by about seventy long, and its floor is not a plane, but is traversed by ranges of hills of about the magnitude of the Alleghanies. There are several distinct and extensive valleys. But the rim is studded with some of the highest peaks of the state, among them Gray’s Peak, Long’s Peak and Mount Lincoln, rising to an elevation of 13,000 to 14,000 feet.
Beside it on the west lies the smaller basin, called Egerea Park, and on its northeast side is Estes Park. At its southeast corner lies the wee county of Gilpin, one of the oldest, longest-yielding and richest gold districts of the world.
South Park is thirty miles wide and about sixty long; a basin that furnishes the headwaters of the Arkansas and South Platte rivers. It is the best known of all the parks, as the discovery of rich mines in early times opened roads and established settlements. The scenery is charming, and fine pasturage and water offered superior inducements to those who were in Colorado at a time when a man could much more easily have what he fancied than he can now. The three hours’ ride across the southern edge of this park on a clear afternoon, on the Colorado Midland road, is an event to one new to these scenes. Here the South Platte River loses entirely the character one learns to think is that of every mountain stream, and has not even banks. The clear stream, entirely unruffled, lies in innumerable bends—almost coils—along this level floor, without any willow fringes, or even tall grass, just bank-full and no more. But it makes up for this preternatural quietness when it breaks into its foreordained cañon at the eastern edge, and begins its journey of some hundreds of miles into Central Nebraska, where, in Lincoln County, it joins its twin, which rises in North Park. Looking at the map one wonders what mysterious affinity brings these two divergent branches together at last, across distance, high mountains, wide plains and every obstacle possible to running water.
