The Wasatch system of mountains is composed of abrupt ranges crowned with sharp peaks. The several minor ranges and groups of peaks into which it is broken are separated only in part by structural differences, since ridges with homogeneous structure are severed by transverse valleys. The drainage of the whole area occupied by the Wasatch Mountains is westward to the Great Salt Lake. The streams that head in the western end of the Uinta Mountains and West Tavaputs Plateau cut through the Wasatch Mountains.
Great Salt Lake and its upper tributary, Utah Lake, exist by virtue of the presence of the Wasatch Mountains, for the mountains wring from the clouds the waters with which the lakes are supplied.
Walled by high ridges and peaks, many elevated valleys are found. In the midsummer months these valleys are favored with a pleasant, invigorating climate. Occasionally showers of rain fall. Vegetation is vigorous. The distant mountain slopes bear forests of spruce, pine, and fir; the broken foot hills are often covered by low, ragged piñon pines and cedars; and the flood plains of the streams are natural meadows. About the springs and streamlets groves of aspen stand, and the streams are bordered with willows, box elders, and cottonwoods. Now and then a midsummer storm comes, bringing hail, and even snow. When the short summer ends, the aspen and box elder foliage turns to gold flecked with scarlet; the willows to crimson and russet; the meadows are quickly sered, and soon the autumn verdure presents only the somber tints of the evergreens; early snows fall, and the whole land is soon covered with a white mantle, except that here and there bleak hills and rugged peaks are swept bare by the winds. The brief, beautiful summer is followed by a long, dreary winter, and during this winter of snowfall are accumulated the waters that are to be used in fertilizing the valleys away below in the border region between the mountains and the desert basins.
From the Wasatch on the north to the Colob on the south are elevated tables, in general bounded by bold, precipitous escarpments. The lands above are highly and sharply differentiated from the lands below in climate, vegetation, soil, and other physical characters. These high plateaus are covered with sheets and beds of lava, and over the lava sheets are scattered many volcanic cinder cones. The higher plateaus bear heavy forests of evergreens, and scattered through the forests are many little valleys or meadow glades. The gnarled, somber forests are often beset with fallen timber and a vigorous second growth, forming together a dead and living tangle difficult to penetrate. But often the forest aisles are open from glade to glade, or from border cliff to border cliff. In the midst of the glades are many beautiful lakelets, and from the cliffs that bound the plateaus on every hand the waters break out in innumerable springs.
Here, also, a brief summer is followed by a long winter, and through its dreary days the snow is gathered which fills the lakelets above and feeds the springs along the bordering cliffs. The springs of the cliffs are the fountains of the rivers that are to fertilize the valleys lying to the east, south, and west.
The Uinta Mountains constitute an east and west range. From a single great uplift, nearly 200 miles long and from 40 to 50 miles wide, valleys and cañons have been carved by rains and rivers, and table lands and peaks have been left embossed on the surface. Along its middle belt from east to west the peaks are scattered in great confusion, but in general the highest peaks are near the center of the range. The general elevation descends abruptly both on the north and south margins of the uplift, and at the crest of each abrupt descent there are many limestone ridges and crags. Between these ridges and crags that stand along the bordering crests, and the peaks that stand along the meandering watershed, there are broad tables, some times covered with forests, sometimes only with grass.
This is a third region of short summers and long winters, where the waters are collected to fertilize the valleys to the north and south.
Away to the southward are the twin plateaus, East and West Tavaputs, severed by the Green River. These plateaus culminate at the Brown Cliffs, where bold escarpments are presented southward.
Outlying the Brown Cliffs are the Book Cliffs. These, also, are escarpments of naked rock, with many salient and reëntrant angles and outlying buttes. The beds of which they are composed are shales and sandstones of many shades of blue, gray, and buff. In the distance, and softly blended by atmospheric haze, the towering walls have an azure hue. Everywhere they are elaborately water carved, and the bold battlements above are buttressed with sculptured hills. In 1869, when the writer first saw this great escarpment, he gave it the name of the Azure Cliffs, but an earlier traveler, passing by another route across the country, had seen them in the distance, and, seizing another characteristic feature, had called them the Book Mountains. Gunnison saw, however, not a range of mountains, but the escarped edge of a plateau, and this escarpment we now call the Book Cliffs. From the Brown Cliffs northward these plateaus dip gently north to the Uinta-White Basin. From the very crest of the Brown Cliffs the drainage is northward.