Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-08-10
TWo-MILE-HIGH playground


= Sans national parks. 1t is To-
Gated in Colorado, 40 miles as the crow
flies from Denver. The route by wing
is by far the shortest for wagon roads
make so many detours among the can
yons that 20 horizontal miles, and one
which is perpendicular, must be ira
versed between this city of the Rock
les and the new riot of nature that is
to be preserved for posterity.
1t was 90 years ago that Lord Dun
raven, an English sportsman and globe
trotter, wandered into the region that
makes up the new Rocky Maintain Ma
tional Park. There he shot elk and
bag was full But, having surfeited
himself with sport of this nature, he
remained to absorb the beauties of the
mountain scenery. He became so inn
pressed with it that he tarried for
months.
Then he went to Europe and
brought back the best artist he could
find to paint some of the beauties he
had discovered. Incidentally, he en-
ployed a descriptive writer to come
all the way to these American wilds
to write about them He contem-
plated buying a great tract of this land
and converting it into a shooting pre-
serve. He never consummated this
ambition, but he introduced this
n6dTL OIL the fNOCklGS 10 the WOIld
The preserve that Lord Dunraven
would have created as a private hold
ing became a national park through
the action of the last session of Con-
gress, which, in January, set aside
$4,000 acres to be held forever as a
wilderness of nature where the people
may, upon occasion, repair and review
the primeval world still undefled. On
July IL was turned over the Secre-
a of hnfnR
administered as a national park. Dur
ing the present month it is being Wis.,
tied by many tourists, to whom 1t is
making it's first bow with Uncle Sam
as its sponsor.
Fourteenth National Park
Thus has come into existence the
fourteenth national park that is cared
for by the federal government. AL
ready it has been administering such
Fairgrounds as the wonderland of the
! Yellowstone; the snow pyramid of
Mount Rainier; that titanic cash in the
earth that makes the Grand Canyon;
Glacier Park in Montana, which sur
passes the Alps; Iosemite, Crater, Sc
quota and others.
But the Rocky Mountain National
Park introduces a new attraction into
the sisterhood. 1t is not park which
has its central attraction some one
feature that is freak of nature, or
that lends peculiar interest. 1t occu-
pies that point in the Rocky Mountains
where the grandeur of this huge
mountain chain is at its best-where
mountain scenery is regarded as hav-
ing most nearly approached perfec-
ton. 1t Is a single point where the
wide-fiung Rockies may be seen to
best advantage-where the impress
siveness of the whole system may be
appreciated.
The new park contains about $50
square miles, which means that it is
about five times as big as the District
of Columbia. 1t is about 25 miles
long and fifteen wide.
There is not in the park single
spot that is less than 5000 feet, or a
mile and a half, above sea level. Yet
so high is the whole region that these
are by comparison lowlands. There
! are so peaks that rise above the 12,-
600 foot line and are in the two-and-a-
half mile class as to height. The
highest of them all surpasses Pixies
Peak and is among the great noun
tains of the Rockies. This is Longs
Peak, which has an elevation of a.
! 256 feet. Eighteen of the mountains
in this small area have an elevation of
more than 1900 feet.
200 Crystal Lakes
Suspended in this sky line of con-
tinent are 200 crystal lakes, mirror
ing the nearby sky. They are but
patches of blue in the pockets of
mountain canyons. They cover ten
or twenty or sixty acres of ground.
Grand Lake, the largest of them all, is
three miles long. Odessa Lake is the
most picturesque in it's riot grandeur,
while Charm Lake is the widest and
nestles like a fawn in hiding at an
elevation of IL, 900 feet.
The Rocky Mountain National Park
straddles the continental divide. The
water from portions of 1t flow into the
streams that lead to the River Platte
and thence to the Missouri, the Mis-
sissippi and Gulf of Mexico. Others
of them leap over precipices into the
headquarters of the Grand River
which flows into the Colorado, which
winds through the wonders of the
Grand Canyon and empties into the
pearl-breeding waters of the Gulf of
California.
The trees of the region, chiefly pines
and spruce. climb high up among the
SHOWS. Timberline here is 1850 feet
high--a decided contrast to condi-
tions in the Alps where nothing grows
above $500 feet
The landscapes that are laid out
unon fhfa hasia hava THAR oUn naau-