BALD PEAKS AND GREEN VALES 



ONE of my chief objects in visiting the Rockies 

 was to ascend Pike"'s Peak from Manitou, and 

 make observations on the birds from the base 

 to the summit. A walk one afternoon up to the Half- 

 Avay House and back — the Halfway House is only 

 about one-third of the way to the top — convinced me 

 that to climb the entire distance on foot would be a 

 useless expenditure of time and effort. An idea struck 

 me : Why not ride up on the cog-wheel train, and then 

 w^alk down, going around by some of the valleys and 

 taking all the time needed for observations on the avi- 

 faunal tenantry ? That was the plan pursued, and an 

 excellent one it proved. 



When the puffing cog-wheel train landed me on the 

 summit, I was fresh and vigorous, and therefore in ex- 

 cellent condition physically and mentally to enjoy the 

 scenery and also to ride my hobby at will over the realm 

 of cloudland. The summit is a bald area of several 

 acres, strewn with immense fragments of granite, with 

 not a spear of grass visible. One of the signal-station 

 men asked a friend who had just come up from the 



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