The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1883-08-30
AscENT no MARsHALL PAS.

Leaving Gunnison we follow the turtuous
windings of the Tomiehi River to its sources on
the bleak, icy SUBMITS standing sentinel over
Marshall Pass. And interesting, indeed, it is
to reflect that this is one of the chief sources
of the important river Grande, which, drain
ing Colorado TO the southwest, uniteS with the
Green to form that wonderful Colorado River,
sweeping through its dizzy canons to the Gulf
of California For the first thirty miles we run
through cool mountain meadows and snug
coves, with their herds of fine grazing cattle,
until ar Spencer's we begin that seventeen
mile ascent to Marshall Pass, the magnitude of
whose impressions must live while memory
lasts.
" have given up taking notes, says fellow
traveller. " We shall expect TO see it all in THE
NATIONAL TRIBUNE" Alas, for shattered hui
man hopes As well try TO make the blind man
feel the exquisite harmonies of the rainbow, or
to make the deaf to hear the thunderings of
Niagara, as to give any idea of the unearthly
glory of this transcend entail mountain country.
Up and up, the painting mountain burrO GOES
patiently, swiftly, sUrely,-one hundred and
eighty feet to the mile-two hundred feet-two
hundred and twenty feet. And yet it is not
always up. for sometimes it is down a swift de-
cline, to get better starting point for leaping
a periloHs gorge or to skirt a dizzy preeipice.
Around and around the peaks and spurs, by
zgzag courses and spiral curves, track overlap
>
dry, rugged beds of the mountain torrents,
past assures and seams and rents, the intense
vivid blue of the Colorado sky above, and the
intense vivid green's of the Colorado SUBMITS
below,-how can one write of this who has not
been baptized with the flame of true Pente-
cOstal fires?
Now hanging halfway on the brow of some
lofty peak, your guide points TO road hun
dreds of feet below as the one over which you
must return along the same mountain. before
you go climbing to higher heights beyond. At
one point the road circles around the mountain,
crosses bridge over mountain stream, circles
around again, and goes directly under the
bridge over which il had gone before. Reach
ing the summit of Marshall Pass, you can look
down and see the road over which you have
crossed at four different attitudes, tier above
tier like the rings of spiral.
The scenery is unlike anything we have
seen. Above there, at Alpine Pass, of this same
Sagauche Range, which runs from Tennessee
Pass on the north to Mount OuFay on the south,
and which is casteliated with some of the
grandest peaks in the State,-as Nit. Harvard,
4,15I feet; Yale, 14,12l Princeton, 14199;
Autero, Ia, 245, and Alt 0uTay, I4,0i3,-there is
a sudden and sharp upheaval of the primitive
rocks. The windings Of the galches are well
defined, and seem to be leading directly up to
somewhere. But here all is vast and boundless
confusion. Canon interseets canon, and gorge
plunges into gorge IN the most chaotic and be-
wildering frequency. The Sagauche Range is
defined as the boundary line between Chafee
aud Gunnison counties, bat better name
would be the boundary labyrinth, though it
would be the mightiest and most perplexing
labyrinth ever given poor helpless mOrtals to
thread.
The sensations of even the lightest of heart
are strange and solemn, for, look where you
will, there is nothing but mountains dark,
somber, towering mountains-mountains bend
ing in awful grandeur above YOU mountains
misty and vast far away, mountains clothed
in hazy blue, mountains with their giant faces
yelled in black shadows or tinted with anne
thyst and purple dyes, mountains at the end
of long vista OF teEderest blue, mountains
with their assures marked by the perpetual
SHOWS. Hare the cataract comes tumbIing