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Show 95 On the north side the slopes ' to the canon of Hensen Creek are more abrupt, but of the same general character. The peak occupies the vertex of an angle where the divide sharply bends round the head of a tributary of Heusen Creek. It is of a brilliant red color, which continues nearly to its base, but few trees finding foot- hold upon its flanks, save on the southeastern side. This color is due probably to the red oxides of iron in the pyrites of the decomposed trachytes, covering with ashen material or gravelly slides it* steep slopes. After crossing the pass at the head of Cinnamon Gulch, a tributary of the Animas, to the head of the Lake Fork, this peak is in full view throughout its entire southern slopes, and, the Lake Fork here taking a bend to the southeast before its final betid to the north, seems to fill up with its slopes the oafion of that stream. A triangulation- station was made by Mr. Spiller upon this beautiful peak, and he gave it the name of Red Cloud. Its altitude, from cistern- barometer observations referred to camp at it* base, is 14,092 feet. The average height of the peaks of this range, which in all number twenty- seven, is 13,500 feet, many of them exceeding this height. Uncompahgre Peak and Group. At the head of Hensen Creek is an extensive area, above the limit of arborescent vegetation, covered with mountain grasses and flowers, separated from the Animas and Uncompahgre Rivers by a quite steep ridge, rising some 500 feet above the general level of this area. It is easy to ride around the dividing line, however, between the northern tributaries of Hensen Creek and the streams flowing " north to the Uncompahgre and Gunnison, save at three points where the otherwise nearly even crest of this treeless area is broken by abruptly- rising masses of volcanic material, which will, of course, cause detours to be made to avoid them; but, in spite of the few rough places, it is entirely piacticable to ride from the head waters of Hensen Creek along or near the Uncompahgre drainage- axis as far to the northeast as latitude 38° 10', or about 17 miles, where the portion above timber- line ends. To attain to the summit of this axis, however, is at best a difficult matter, except by way of the headwaters of the Animas Kiver. The streams flowing down from it to Hensen Creek and the Lake Fork, as well as those running in a northerly direction, all are in deep, rocky, and steep canons, but few of which are passable, and none of which can be followed without great labor and fatigue in climbing over bogs, rock- slides, and fallen timber. Between the tributaries flowing northward to the Gunnison or Uncompahgre, sharp, almost rectilinear spurs, exhibiting ridge- like peaks, truncated pyramids, or house- like walls of bare rock, with deep and rocky- sided cafions, extend for from 8 to 12 miles north from the divide, and then break down to even- crested ridges covered with timber, and continuing to the canon of the Gunnison. This general evenness of crest and the truncated aspects of the mountains appearing above it give that plateau- like impression to this portion of the elavated area about the headwaters or the streams in Southern Colorado, in common with the whole northern rim of the Rio Grande basin. The three masses mentioned above as rising above the general crest of the Uncompahgre spur are, first, the Wild Horse, at the head of the western fork of Ibex Creek, the Wetterhorn, and further east, the highest mass in Colorado Territory, the Uncompahgre Peak. These three peaks are similar in general ontline in so far as that each slopes more gradually- if slopes is a proper word to use for such declivities- to the sonth and are terminated toward the north by nearly vertical bluffs, the Wild Horse and Wetterhorn seeming to imitate their more massive neighbor, and the latter of the two certainly overdoing the character. The Uncompahgre Peak presents a truncated, terraced aspect, seemingly stratified from successive flows of lava, rising about 1,800 feet above the general level of the divide. On the northern side there is a vertical bluff of nearly 2,000 feet; lesser bluffs extend around the east and west sides, leaving a broken, narrow ridge extending to the south, sloping like the curved edge of a snowdrift to the east, but on the western bounded by vertical ledges of trap and steep slopes of rocks and dtbris. The peak was ascended along this ridge with but little difficulty, except at one point near the summit, where a vertical wall of small height affords a good excuse for an awkward climber to roll down the dtfbris slopes to the westward. In 1874 a large cinnamon bear and her cub were found sportively tumbling and rolling from the summit of Uncompahgre at this point, and came near occasioning the loss of onr theodolite and of one of the packers who was carrying it. Just as he raised bis head above the ledge the bear happened to be about to look down over the same place and both animals, each rather disconcerted at the proximity of the other, tumbled off the cliff together. Both bear and packer, however, happily escaped further injury than a good fright and a few bruises. This peak, though not a sharp point, makes an excellent triangulation- station, since all of the higher points within a radius of 80 miles from the 8ierra La Plata around the horizon can be seen from it, and the peculiar shape of its summit makes it readily recognized from any of the points in return. Its altitude |