Morning journal and courier., 1886-07-26
CoRREsPONDENCE.


 and the s'Garden of the GOds.''
 To the Editor'of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 It would seem as though an elevation vary ing from five to seven thousand feet above the sea level would insure at least moderate degree of coolness, but with the exception of the nights, which are always some twenty degrees cooler than the days, the weather has been most oppressive, the mercury rang ing from 84' to 93' during the entire week just past. On Thursday we left Denver with it's miles of broad and well-shaded avenues and it's picturesque location, with it's magnif- cent vista of the Rocky Mountains in the dis tance and extending as far as the eye can reach, and proceeded on tho way to Manitou, the Saratoga of the Rocky Mountains. This beautiful spot is located almost at the foot of Pike's Peak and is reached by changing cars at Colorado Springs on the Denver & Rio Grande railroad and taking pleasant little ride of about four miles in train which gradually carries you up to still higher elevation and finally deposits you at Manitou, the terminus of the road. This little place is made up of some half dozen hotels, hold ing from one to two hundred people each, and few cottages scattered here and there, while still farther up in the mountainsemore than sixty-four hundred feet above sea level, is the cosy little Iron Springs Hotel, smaller than the others, but in far more cool and picturesque location. The main body of ho- tels is naturally grouped around the famous soda springs where bubbling up through the ground is a real effervescing soda spring, on- ly needing the aecompaniments of syrups and little ice to regale the visitor with genuine fountain soda water, minus the mar bls dust and fountain, free of cost. The spacious cottage-like bath house affords am pie opportunity also for the small boy or J,,Jt %o faiT in Sodo toy should they desire, but this for modsr ate consideration. In front of the Iron Springs Hotel are two iron springs, from which the hotel takes it's name, one of these the ''Little Chief from the pungent character of it's waters making most refreshing and agreeable table-water. The hotel and it's surrounding grounds are lighted with the Edison incandeseent light and these signs of civilization and progress way up in the heart of the mountains con trast strongly with the wi)dness of the sur rounding scenery. A mountain stream sup plies the power which runs the dynamo.
 From almost in front of the hotel begins the trail to Pike's Peak. It is ten and one-half miles to the top, and the journey to and fro takes all of one day. The ascent is made on horseback and is rather more tedious than difficult. The day we rived a party of si1ty-nine people made the ascent, many of them deaf mutes who hap pened to be excursion, and could not help but think afterward how weirdly their gesticulations must have appeared among the vastnesses of the mountains, something like the scene in the Catskills in Rip Van Wrinkle when the goblin crew of Heinrich Hudson appear and disappear so silently.
 Plkes Peak is always snow clad towards the summit, which looms up plainly visible fIom Denver, more than ninety miles away, and from still greater distance in the other direction. Indeed, on clear moonlight nights so bold and glistening is it's crest that it can be plainly seen for hundred miles.
 At Manitou or in it's vicinity many cu- rious freaks of nature, the 'tGard9n of the Gods" perhaps being the most famous Here the sandstone, which from the Denver & Rio Grande railroad looks but like the reddish sides of the mountains, are found to be sepa- rate and distinct strata of rock, which rear their heads for many feet directly out of the earth, assuming all manner of odd and fan tastic shapes-church spires, needles, anvils, grifins' heads and all manner of beasts and egetables-likenessesr rude, indeed, but dis tinguishable with the aid of the guide book, good imagination and the tongue of the guide. But it is remarkable to see such immense strips of solid rock ris- ing apparently with no particular reference to their surroundings and with such utter disregard of all conventional preconceived notions of what we'll behaved sandstone strata should do.
 Here at Manitou are the Grand Caverns, a large and spacious cave in the mountain side with all the necessary altars, cathedrals, organs groves and grottoes with which all such we'll regulated caves are supplied. The ascent to this Is via the celebrated Ute Pass, the old post road to Denver and Leadville, where formerly be- fore the days of railroads, at least in that section of country, there were not five min utes of the day when wagon trains were not passing by given point on the road. The pass itself attains an altitude of eleven thou sand two hundred feet, but the view is not very extended, though grand, as the vision is by numerous surrounding peaks, among which the emnipresent Pikes Peak looms up like Jack-in-the- box to Haunt it's bald old pate before the eyes of the tourist straining for the beyond. The world-famous Rainbow Falls, the Cave of the Winds, Crystal Park, Glen Eyri and other beautiful and picturesque spots go to make up the many natural attractions with which this locality abounds, and yet not without an ef- fort all the grandeur is forgotten or lost sight of in the elevation from which the mountain crests are viewed, and often have I been impressed more by the loftiness of the Catskill Mountains viewed as they are, almost from the level of the sea, than by the noble peaks of the Rocky Mountains the meanest of which towers above the tip-most tops of the highest of the Catskills and scores of them overtop our own honored Mt. Washington. Put enough for the present. Already the lofty Rockies are fading from sight and we shall soon be in Las Vegas the imperial city of New Mexico.
 w. H. L.