News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1903-07-01
The Ascent Of Mount Washburn.
by Rev. John W. Carter

is to climb mountains. Thousands
stream to them every year and are
enchanted as they learn their song
and mingle and enrich their own little
ongoings with those of nature. | was
born among the mountains and love
to revel In the color glory of their
care killing scenery. Going to them
is going home, for they are the
fountains of life as of rivers. OFT In
thought fly from the sultry plains
of our middle west to Old Mansfield,
that rises far into the cool ariel
streams above MY childhood home.
Sometimes through the vestibules of
the memory comes vision from the
summit of Mount Royal as you look
down upon the domes and spires and
into the moving life OF Montreal. Or
when fatigued with the iostling of the
city the memory leads me to a noun
tain path amid the solitudes of the
Adirondacks on a day when among
those forests natures peace flowed
into the soul.
Away in the southland, in single
hour, | have been lifted from the Or
.ange groves and poppy fields in the
tropical valley of the San Gabriel to
the refreshing SHOWS upon Mount
Lowe. From the shade of the noun
tain pine you look down upon the
palms in the deserts burning sand
and far away upon the horizon the
blue waters of the Pacific. With
Joaquin Miller | have, sat in his sum-
mer home and watched the eternal
Shasta lift it's head into the cloudless
sky, the white robed saint of the
Sierra's. From the snow line upon
Mount Hood | have seen the great
dark forests serge against its base
while below in the valley of Oregon,
tessalated with fields of ripened grain,
dashed the Columbia, and far off in
the west lay the Willamette Val
ley in its entirety. Until yesterday
Mount Rainier, glorious tent of God,
against the shining wall of Haven,
above the Puget sea, was my grand
est mountain memory. Like fair
one with water jars in arms, she feeds
the verdure of the valley.
The scene beyond description is to
gaze into the Yellowstone Wonder
land from the Summit of Mount
Washburn. The picture surpasses
all others upon cur fire moulded,
earth quake shaken, rain and wave
washed. river and glacier sculptored
world. Here nature exhibits thou
sand of Gods widest blessings that
search you and soak you as though
you were a sponge. If some artist
could but put upon an immortal can
vass this most beautiful block of ma
tural beauty in the world and frame
it for earth's millions to look upon,
verify they would f. ell the breath of
God, as his divine lineaments are al
most revealed. The picture is full of
happy storm loving trees, and noun
tains baked like potatoes and colored
like a sunset SKY. A thousand
streams gush from hot lava beds or
fall from frosty peaks, shining like
threads of silver in the landscape as
they unite famous band Of lakes
that glisten like gems amid the emer-
aid settings. Beneath yawns the gulf
of the Grand Canyon which of all that
nature has on show is her master
piece of beauty.
Though Mount Washburn is more
than ten thousand feet above the sea
the ascent to it's summit is not diff
ficult if one is blessed with a good
heart, sound lungs, and soul that
loves the music of the beautiful. Soon
after leaving the Grand Car yon of
the Yellowstone the landscape of the
great Falkland begins to unfold.
Like Emerson's "Monadnock, the
mountain itself is uninteresting, ex-
cept for piles of basalt, scattered
agate, beautiful fragments of sar-
doDyx, chaIdedony and mallchite.
The attraction that draws one up the
slope of the barren cone above the
floral zone is the moment when you
shall stand upon that height
and look down upon The land of
greater glories," studded with its
geysers, lakes and rivers, and a can
yon whose beauty has been sung
throughout the world.
To the north stretches aw6v the
great plateau. Far away is the
Jagged range of the Gallatin on the
very verge Of the horizon looms up the
snowy summit of Electric Peak.
Nearer, in the valley of the Yellow.
stone, are groves of stately trees, and
sparkling waters dance and sing in
glorious array in the variegated land
scape of surprising beauty. In the
west lies the great basin OF the Vel
lowstone, sixty miles in diameter and
filled with a hundred gfysers, that
have been gathered from all the earth
as her rarest gems for show, which
spout upward from their hot under
world. From the south a strange
scene breaks in upon the vision. Here
nature thrills you to the heart asyou
look upon aher grandest panorama
which fills the whole field of vision
with great world wonders. There lies
the Yellowstone Lake, a mirrorre fl ct
ing high mountains, bristliDg with
their peaks of snow. Far away on
the horizon rise the frowning ice bar
Tiers OF the south, the Three Tetons,
monarchs of all they survey. Trans.
fiUurnd Won OF mill eIa