The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-09-05
LETTERS FROM COLORADO.
NO 3.
MOUNTAIN LIFE.
TsnderEeet Experiences I'm Colorado.
In CAMP, 10000 feet high, I
Colorado, Aug. IL, 1879.

IN CAMP, 1O,OOO feet high,
Colorado, Aug. 12, 1879.
CLIMBING UP.
Sow belly for supper, boys" and the
speaker held the sputtering frying pan
over the blazing pine fire, and called on
a comrade TO chuck the coffee into the
kettle of boiling water, for the tin plates
were set out on the grass and the Dutch
oven revealed q huge loaf of bread ready
for dissection. In five minutes more
half dozen very tired and exceedingly
hungry men were disposing of strong
coffee, hot bread and fat bacon, at a rate
which would shock a dYspeptic into
spasms. In another ten minutes the tin
cups, spoons and plates, the butcher
knives and cast-iron forks, were in hur-
ried process of washing and wiping.
while blankets were being rolled out on
the ground inside the tent, and as the
sun sank behind the western range. and
twilight crept out from its hiding place
in the unknown valleys, and first the far
and then the nearer peaks faded into the
misty darkness that floated from summit
to summit and crept noiselessly down
each mountain side, hiding tree and rock
in its chilly folds, and wrapping all the
wild landscape into the mysterious qui-
etness of the mountain night, tent and
wagon gave no sign of life, and all was
still save the fitful signing of the noun
tain breeze and the low, unceasing muir
muir of the crystal stream that tumbled
over its rocky bed past the impromptu
camp, and sped on its way down the can
yon to refresh the thirsty plain beneath.
THE ROADS.
Travelling in the mountains is a stern
reality. To begin with, the roads, SO far
as wagons are concerned, are all made
roads" and are very seldom made except
along the border of some stream which
winds its devious and torturous course
here and there and everywhere to find a
passage through the mountains. Where
stream of water finds its way down,
man follows up, and when travel PROM
ises sufficient remuneration, a road is
built and toll charged, for wagons. Part
of the road requires little or no work,
then comes a spot where the rocks must
be blasted or trees hewn away, and then
where rocks must be built up alongside
the stream and their tops covered with
earth and smaller stones, to make a road
way. And wherever winding up or
down or around hill or any obstruc-
ton can be of any avail to avoid the
work of making the road, the winding
and twisting is resorted to, and if five
miles of travel up hill and down and
around and back again will save some
entertainments or excavations which
would shorten the five miles into one,
the five miles will invariably be found
on hand, or rather under foot, and its
rockiness and roughness and steepness IS
a matter that no mOuntaineer grumbles
about. To have any road at all that a
wagon can be pulled up and let down by
the utmost exertions of which horse and
mule muscle and wagon brakes are ca
pable, is all that mountain patience de-
mands, and a mountain road that admits
of this is not regarded as needing any
improvement.
THE FARMS.
At intervals of few miles along the
streams their banks widen out so that
considerable space of ground can be cul-
tivated, and in every such little elongat-
ed, fenced-up nook in the mountains, is
'ranch, /" where oats and potatoes grow,
and cow or two picks fodder off the
slopes above. The ranchman's house is
generally q comfortable log structure,
and he and the grown-up members of his
family are nearly always intelligent peo-
pie, who have not been born or brought
up in the mountains but have settled
there after good deal of worldly expert
ence. If alarge part of the population of
the Allegheny mountains is delightfully."-
ignorant and uncouth, the Colorado
mountain farmers are the reverse, for
their youth, and often half their maturi
ty, have been passed in drifting about the
world, to end in finally casting anchor
IN the Rocky mountains, apparently re-
signed if not contented to there lead a
lonely and mOnotonous, but healthy
and peaceful existence for the remainder
of their days. Passing travellers buy
most of their surplus crops, their wants
are few, and visit to Denver or some
nearer market place two or three times
a year, suffices for all the shopping they
need to do. About half way to the top
of the mountain range, the ranches need
and receive an ample irrigation; at about
the point where the streams become few
er, and irrigation would be very difficult,
the weather is rainy enough to supply
the moisture necessary. The higher up
the ranch the larger the area of tillable
ground generally is, and as timber line
and the limit of vegetation is neared, the
tillable soil spreads out often into extern
sive park-like stretches, kept verdant and
beautiful by frequent rains, and prevent
ed only by cold nights from producing
luxuriantly everything that irrigation
will bring forth on the plains. Oats, pO
| tatoes and hay, and higher up oats and
} hay, and finally hay, are the crops of the
high attitudes. Wheat appears not &c
; be grown above the height where irriga
ton becomes unnecessary. Even on the
} PLAINS the wheat is not cut until the lat
ter part of July and early in August, and
: the mountain oats are often cut while ap
} parently green, and rIpen in the swatf
: before being stacked. The quality o.
: Colorado wheat and oats, as is vel
known, is superior to those of any othel
state. But if corn can be successfully
e. grown in Colorado it must be on the Kan
/ sas side of the line. say about 800 mile.
r east of the mountains. GRAHAM.
TELEGRA-PHIC.