The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-01-11
ON LOFTY GRAND TETON.

hlBHef LNhu Any tuner AmerlcAn- Ieak Outside of AIaslSa--It Towers 15,446 Feet in Air, Being 1,229 Feet Higher Than Pike's Peak-An Interesting Story of its Exploration,
 [Frorl the Rocky Mountain News.l
 In the rotunda of the Capitol build ing at Cheyenne, Wv, is a large oil painting which represents the three great mountain peaks of the Teton range in western Wyoming. The cen ter peak rises majestlcally above it's fellows. The painter was not aware of the fact, but 1t is now known that the summit is the highest mountain peak in the United States outside of Alaska. The Grand Teton peak is 15,446 feet high, being 1,229 feet higher than Pike's Peak, and 9S2 feet higher than the loft fest mountain peak in Colorado.
 The world is mainly indebted to party of Cripple Creek miners for the information given above. The Cripple Creek miner has been heard of in South Africa and west Australia, but 1t re- mained for six sturdy young men from the greatest gold camp of Colorado to explore the terra incognita along the Teton range, and calculate by mathe- matical triangulation the height of the monarch of the Tetons.
 w. T. Sawyer, the leader of the eX- plorers, Is now in this city. His reel tai of the adventures of the little band from Cripple Creek, and the discoveries made in regions perhaps never before trodden by white man, sounds like chapter from Livingstone or story by one of the early voyagers in the great west There Is a whole volume Of TO- nance in the story of Prospector Saw yer and his companions.
 -Four years ago." said he, T met stranger on a train between Denver and Cheyenne. We fell into conversa- ton, and he told me about Robert Dor gan, the Missouri miner who went into the mountains of western Wyoming twenty-five years ago and arrived at Cheyenne several months later with eleven hundred pounds of placer gold on his pack horses. The gold netted two hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars. I had often heard the story from. miners and prospectors in the mountains, but never placed any faith in the report until became acquainted with the man on the train. found that my new acquaintance was a son of Dorgan, and was wealthy farmer of Missouri. His father died about 1870. just as he was to start on sec ond trip to the mountains. His secret died with him"
 Speaking further, MT. Sawyer said he determined after leaving Dorgan junior to investigate the truth of the report concerning the great placer hnd' and at the earliest opportunity he made a. trip into the Teton country, met a hermit named Todd who was paid one thousand dollars by Dorgan to p1- lot him out of the country in 1869, and found that the story in it's essential features was true. Last summer Saw yer. organized for a grand exploration four. The party started from Cripple Creek overland, the trip involving a journey of six or seven hundred miles through one of. the most rugged regions of the American continent. The party was supplied with horses. wagons, ana a complete camping outfit, and on the list of August "Jacksons Hole was reached. The "hole'' is a beautiful ba- sin in the mountains, twenty miles south of Yellowstone National Park. The valley as described by MT. sawyer is sixty miles long, and has an average width of twenty miles. Jackson's lake, a body of water eighteen by nine miles in size, is in the upper end of the val lev. and the Snake river, emptying out of the lake, which is fed by hundred mountain streams. winds it's way through the valley, Mountains on three sides shut in the valley from the cold winter days. so that, MT. Sawyer saws. the Snake river is never frozen over, even in the coldest days or the year.
 s'The region,' said the visitor, Tn re- ply to inquiries, 'fs one of the most Tn teresting have ever seen, and nave visited all the principal mountain couh- tries of the world. One of the noun tains. which has been christened Mount Sawyer. has waterfall with perpen- dici,lar descent of more than 4,5O0 feet' snowslides and glaciers may be seen leading down toward the lakes that are scattered through the region, or the streams that merge into Snake rlVer' Where the river breaks through the Teton range there is a canon With d sheer perpendicular height of six thou- sand feet. The canon is one hundred and forty miles long, and, so far as IS known, no man has ever passed through it's gloomy portals and came out alive. There are many other can ons leading into the valley, but the Snake river canon surpasses them all in grandeur and impressiveness. It IS deeper and darker, and more dangerous to the life of any person attempting to make the passage, than the Grand can on of the Colorado"
 MT. Sawyer then described a great cave whose dark opening peered out from the base of one of the mighty mountain peaks upon the border Of Jackson's lake. The Cripple Creek ex- plorers then entered the cave to a dls- tance of 800 or 1000 feet.
 Tn our progress" said the leader or the party, i've heard strange groan- ings and hissing noises that would