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Show 102 Under the most favorable circumstances one must be impressed with a feeling akin to terror in merely viewing these lofty crags and these deep- cut gorges between them; but, under the conditions they were visited in 1874, by Mr. Nell and myself, they cannot fail to leave behind a lasting dread of them and of everything connected with them. On the 1st of October, after considerable difficulty, we succeeded in reaching the limit of tree- growth on the flanks of one of the most southerly of these crags, by crossing the Atlantic and Pacific divide at the head of the Ute Creek, tributary to the Rio Grande. Camping here at the head of a profound gorge 11,750 feet above sea-level, we awaited the next day to make a triangulation station upon apparently a thin slab, which from its appearance from the north we had christened " The Hunchback." In this, however, we were destined to disappointment, for it began to snow, and the next morning the ground was covered to a depth of 6 inches. Thin fleecy clouds were floating about, and cheated us with the hope that the storm was spent and the peak could still be made. We delayed, therefore, until the summit of the crags should be visible, but the clouds only thickened, and soon again the snow was flying so thick and fast that we could not see 50 yards; and to make the white gloom more visible, and our condition more amusing, perhaps, forked streams of electricity, followed by tremendous bursts, claps, and rolls of thunder- which, atteuding a snow- storm, was to me a special and unheard- of exhibition of heavenly wrath- leaped from cloud to crag, in this group of natural lightning- rods, in the most inexplicable and to us unassuring and unnecessary manner. It blew and blustered, stormed, crashed, and thundered as if heaven were determined to level and blow away in dust these already shattered and ruined masses of flint. All day it would storm a* nd snow, and at night the stars would come out twinkling, cheering us with a vain hope for the morrow. Three days we lay here unable to move, while those light, beautiful, almost impalpable flakes were gradually enveloping us, removing from us hopes of escape, and making life miserable by insinuating themselves like fog, everywhere, into our tents, into our beds, almost into the pores of our skins. We dare not move, lest, lost in this white darkness, we should be precipitated over some ledge or be lost in banks of snow drifted by the winds. Our poor mules, which, in their previous revolutionary attempts to subvert the established order of their packs by erratic excursions down hill on mde trips, had succeeded only in crippling themselves; motionless, and covered with as much snow as would lie upon their backs, stood gloomily around, gazing at us with that dumb expression of unutterable misery, despair, aud reproach which even mnles can assume, and which appeals irresistibly for sympathy and aid. On the morning of the fourth day the snow was slowly falling, and the fleecy clouds rolling hither and thither above us and in the gorges below, every now and then giving us a glimpse of sun and snow- crowned crag or deep- cut gorge, showed to us poor shivering mortals that the storm was nearly spent; our mules gained courage, and began to break their three days' fast by ravenously devouring the twigs and branches of the scattered Bhrubbery and the grass obtained by pawing the deep snow. We hardly needed the additional spur to exertion given us by our cook, who, when preparing our breakfast, incidentally remarked, as a matter of no consequence, as he patted his bread into the oven, " That's the last loaf/' adding, however, this additional unimportant bit of news, " We've got lots of beans." We excavated our packs from the snow, and packing our hungry mules, commenced with many misgivings to retrace our steps. Our supplies were at Pagosa Springs, 60 miles distant, and it was necessary to first cross the continental backbone to the Rio Grande side, and then again recross it to the head of the eastern fork of the Los Pinos. The snow varied from eighteen inches to 4 and 5 feet ( where drifted) in depth, and the divide where we crossed was at both places over 12,000 feet in altitude. It was necessary for us to dismount and tramp down the snow to make a passage- way for the loaded and nearly famished mules, which, as fast as the leading animal would become exhausted by the impeding snow, were changed in their order of travel. We succeeded fortunately in reaching each night places where, in lower altitudes, the snow had partly melted and left the grass sticking through it for our animals, ( otherwise we would inevitably have lost them,) and in five days, tired out, we reached our camp at Pagosa, having subsisted entirely upon our cook's *' plenty of beans " for that interval. This article of food had been persistently avoided by us hitherto, but most modestly asserted itself in our hour of need. The quartzite crags are inseparably connected with this disagreeable experience, and in my condemnation of their countenances I am deeply prejudiced against them. HEADWATERS OF THE RIO LOS PINOS, RIO FLORIDA. Crossing the divide at the head of Hine's Fork of the Rio Grande del Norte, we find a stream flowing in a deep and rocky gorge through the midst of the crags just mentioned to the east of south. Northwest some 10 miles and within 4 miles of the cafion of the Kio Grande, heads under Simpson's Pyramid and flows through a flat, badly drained |