Yet a little way beyond the graving tools of nature have wrought out two canyons, indescribable in their beauty, infinite in their variety.
AT FORT SANDERS, A FEW MILES SOUTH OF LARAMIE, IN 1867, GENERAL GRANT AND HIS SUITE WERE PHOTOGRAPHED EN ROUTE OVER THE UNION PACIFIC TO ARRANGE TREATIES WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES WHICH OPPOSED THE RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION
The train drops gently into Echo Canyon, running over rails alongside a mountain torrent. All along the way are Nature’s cathedrals. There are turrets and domes of gray stone, matching the architecture of an oriental city. At almost every step of the journey through the canyons are new and exquisite pictures, rock-framed, or strange monuments of stone. Immense rocks, perched on the verges of precipices, seem to threaten a fall into the abyss. The train passes under frowning cliffs, crossing and recrossing the rushing river; now by waterfalls and cascades; now bursting into a zone of sunshine, then into the twilight between higher walls. The colors are the gray of rock and green of pine, with here and there a splash of iron red.
EROSION HAS SCULPTURED MANY MONUMENTS OF WEIRD SHAPES AND BRIGHT COLORS FROM THE RED SANDSTONE OF THE LARAMIE PLAINS
Winged Rock, Kettle Rocks, Hood Rock, Hanging Rock, Pulpit Rock, The Narrows, Steamboat Rock, Monument Rock, The Cathedral, Battlement Rock, The Witches, Eagle’s Nest, The Devil’s Slide, The Devil’s Gap, and The Devil’s Gate are names given to wonderful rock formations which can be comprehended only by the eye, words being valueless. The canyon walls are from five hundred to eight hundred feet high, and possess more weird and striking rock formations than any other known canyons of equal length.
AT COLORES, ROCKS TURNED BY THE LATHE OF THE WINDS INTO UNUSUAL SHAPES, ARE IN SIGHT FROM THE CAR WINDOW
Out of the Canyon the train breaks into one of Utah’s wonderful valleys, and in a little while reaches the Union Station at Ogden.