The Awakening of the Desert

by Julius Charles Birge

[CHAPTER XXI]
The Parting of the Ways

THE picturesque red-sandstone cliffs of Red Buttes and the granite-ribbed range of the Sweetwater Mountains were left behind us. Slowly our train climbed up the gentle grade to South Pass. But this thoroughfare over the backbone of the continent proved to be a disappointment, as it failed to present the striking characteristics of a mountain pass. In one respect, at least, its top is not unlike the North Pole, for it is admitted by Arctic explorers (Cook and Peary of course, always excepted) that they find it impossible to locate the Boreal end of the earth with exactness. Similarly the transient through South Pass is unable to determine within several miles where his pathway is actually at its highest point. An expansive though shallow depression is found where the summit ought to be, both east and west of which, as we follow the trail, lies a broad, level plateau, and it would be impossible without an instrument to ascertain which side is the higher. On both sides the approaches to the Pass are very easy grades, each merging almost imperceptibly into the table land of the broad summit. To the south, along this great divide, the surface rises step by step and many miles further away in the distance it continues on in smoothly rounded mountain billows. To the north the ascent is also gradual, until twenty-five miles from the trail there rises the base of Atlantic Peak, which is the great southern spur of the bold and rugged Wind River Range. From the slopes of this range issue the remotest tributaries of the Sweetwater River, the stream we had been following. We saw not even a rivulet upon the highland known as South Pass, the flow of which would mark the watershed. Finally we reached Pacific Spring, a diminutive fountain whence a scanty flow of water, oozing from the mud, crept along for a time slowly to the westward. We then knew that we had crossed the great Continental Divide. Here we pitched our tent, and further down the brook the other outfits camped. Although the altitude is but seventy-six hundred feet, the ground froze at night. Some of the snow from the recent storm, which was said to have lain fourteen inches in depth a few days before, still remained on all the lands above the pass. The country for miles around was bleak and destitute even of sage bush. From a small cedar log which we had transported a long distance to meet such an emergency, we chipped a few splinters to build our fire. Each member of our party being provided with a soldier's overcoat, we wrapped ourselves in those garments and were soon to be found standing, very close together around the little blaze. A blue veil of smoke rose also from similar fires at each of the other camps, bearing through the clear air the sweet incense of burning cedar, which was quickly followed by the appetizing fragrance of coffee and bacon.

We were to make a long drive on the following day, for we had learned that after leaving the Pacific Spring no water would be found on our course within a distance of twenty-eight miles. As a start was to be made at three o'clock in the morning, the boys began early to pull out their blankets and find a warm spot for the night. But where is the man with soul so dead, so devoid of all appreciation of nature when she is in one of her rarest moods, who would not wish to watch a remarkable sunset? The sun was sinking behind the mountains of the Bear River Range which, white with the recent snows and extending from north to south, lay one hundred and fifty miles distant to the westward. Far, far away to the south and extending from east to west, rose the white-topped Uinta Range, which south of us seemed to merge into the high lands of the great divide, crossed by the pass and extending westward until it closed in with the western range, forming the base of an immense triangle of mountains, the eastern side of which was the Continental Divide, upon which we stood. Extending northward from our camp, this dividing ridge rises gradually until it meets the foothills of what is now known as Atlantic Peak, which is the southern buttress of the lofty Wind River Range and is twenty-five miles away. Continuing northward, beyond two high intervening summits, this range culminates in Fremont Peak, the monarch of that range, and, as later surveys show, still one hundred miles from our trail. The apex of this triangle of mountains lies north of Fremont Peak, beyond which rise the grand Tetons, one of the most imposing ranges in our country. From the Tetons I have also seen these peaks of the Wind River Range. Within this visible area of mountains lies the highest watershed of North America, whence, from an area of fifty miles square, flow tributaries to the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of California, and the Salt Lake basin.

FREMONT PEAK AND ISLAND LAKE ON THE WEST SLOPE OF THE WIND RIVER RANGE

The triangular disposition of the mountain ranges as they lay before us, at this time outlined by their snow-capped summits, is not clearly shown upon the maps, but of such a form was the impression made upon our eyes. Away down below us and between the sides of that great triangle, thus walled in by mountains, lay the broad basin into which converge the upper tributaries of Green River, a stream which in turn breaking through the Uinta Range rushes southward to join the Colorado, and thence onward through its titanic canyons to the Gulf of California. And now, while the western mountains were casting their far-reaching shadows across this broad basin beneath us, the cold, snow-mantled sides of the Wind River Range were dazzling and glittering in the level beams of the setting sun. From our point of view and at that time they were seen at their best. It was not like an Alpine scene, diversified by mountain lakes, waterfalls, and picturesque chalets, but it had a suggestion of wonderful breadth and vastness and afforded a range of vision rarely to be seen, except when one looks upward to the stars; but the whole of that landscape of mountains, and the deep, broad desert which they enveloped, was bleak and desolate, with never sign of animal life nor trace of vegetation visible. Though to us it was a new country, everything appeared to be old, as if through countless ages it had remained unchanged. With this impression stamped upon our minds, many members of our party wrapped their blankets round them and slept under the open sky.

It happened on that night, one or two nights after the full of the moon, to be my duty to stand guard until midnight. Hence it fell to my lot to watch a dazzling, winter-like sunset in midsummer, which, because of the prevailing whiteness, imparted hardly a tint as the daylight faded, except what was seen in the star-studded azure above. After a brief period of declining light there was a wondrous change when the clear, cold, and pearly moonlight broke over the eastern highlands and lighted up the vast, white, frosty landscape, for the moon was now in her glory and,

"Chaste as the icicle
That's curdled by the frost from purest snow,"

and thus in harmony with the earth upon which she shone, for the distant landscape was spotless white, and the vast stretches of mountain ranges which, along many hundreds of miles, pinnacled the distant horizon with towers and minarets, were covered with crystals of frost and snow.