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Show 36 RECONNAISSANCE IN THE UTE COUNTRY. Mr. Hine staid at the agency to get Indian pictures, rejoining us at this camp. He found them generally objecting to being photographed, often sulky and saucy. From Camp 51 our trail was down the small stream, to near to its confluence with the Los Pinos, about three miles down the wide, open marshy valley of the latter, which we crossed at a point where it is 15 feet wide by 1 deep. The Tumitchie was crossed at a point about three miles from our crossing of the Los Pinos, and at an elevation of aboat 700 feet above it. The Tumitchie is here about 30 feet wide by 2 feet deep, and sluggish, divided at the point of crossing into two channels, and flowing in a marshy bottom about one hundred yards wide between, banks about 50 feet high. Thence up the valley of a dry tributary to a divide between it and a branch of Pass Creek, making Camp 52 at the timber on that creek. No camping- ground between the valley of Los Pinos and this camp. Country broken by rounded mountain summits displaying red granite and porphyry in cliffs having thin soil and poor bunch- grass. The ascent is easy for wagons and possible for railroads. From Camp 52 to 53 over the pass the trail is remarkably easy, ascending easily by the valleys of small tributaries of the Cochetopa, over slopes grassed with bunch- grass and dotted with flowers, larkspur, foxglove, and many others. The lines of hills are all soft, and all timbered with spruce and aspen. Beautiful open glades up the streams. The slope is very easy and entirely practicable for wagons. We crossed the summit without knowing it, and only suspected the fact when the water was found running easterly. Saguache River.- The descent into the Saguache is by equally easy grades. The country on the eastern slope is somewhat more rugged, but good grass and the same timber possibly smaller. Passed considerable pretty well grown pines. The creeks now begin to run in narrow, rocky gorges of a soft coarse granite much disintegrated, and worn into very strange shapes. None of these gorgesoffer any obstacle to a wagon-road, but are formidable fortifications for the Utes in case of war. On high hills on either side of the Saguache, and its branches, are seen great ledges of this granite rock in low slopes stretching along faces of mountains like great public works. On a hill to the left just before debouching into the valley is a ledge with salient and re- entrant angles, a vertical face of perhaps 50 to 100 feet, and some embrasures for guns. This approach to the Ute country is easy so long as no resistance is offered, but, as I have said, the natural position is extremely strong for defense. At Camp 53 the country inside the inclosing mountain ranges of the Saguache Valley is a mass of sharp, rugged foot- hills, little timber, and many deep gorges; otherwise it is a mesa country deeply cut with arroyas in the coarse granitic rock, these arroyas forming a maze not easily avoided. Below a small canon the river- bottom widens out to one- half to one mile, and continues so to a ranch, where our road turns to the right from the river. This bottom is beautifully level and green, the grass being of excellent quality. The only wood is the fringe of black alders and willows along the stream. The mountains, except the snow- peaks, are timbered ranges of soft, long slopes with nearly level sky- lines. The mesa country is arid and barren, with some cacti and sage. At the point of turning to the right we pass into foot- hills, rugged and sterile, and of porphyry and coarse |
