HOi FOR GRAY'S PEAK: 247 



attrition to their present dimensions in the far-away, 

 prehistoric ages. 



A short distance to the northwest frowned Torrey's 

 Peak, Gray's companion-piece, the twain being con- 

 nected by a ridge which dips in an arc perhaps a 

 hundred feet below the summits. The ridge was 

 covered with a deep drift of snow, looking as frigid 

 and unyielding as a scene in the arctic regions. Torrey's 

 is only a few feet lower than Gray's one of my books 

 says five. Mention has been made of its forbidding 

 aspect. It is indeed one of the most ferocious-looking 

 mountains in the Rockies, its crown pointed and grim, 

 helmeted with snow, its sides, especially east and north, 

 seamed and ridged and jagged, the gorges filled with 

 snow, the beetling cliffs jutting dark and threatening, 

 bearing huge drifts upon their shoulders. Torrey's 

 Peak actually seemed to be calling over to us like 

 some boastful Hercules, " Ah, ha ! you have climbed my 

 mi Id- tempered brother, but I dare you to climb me ! " 

 For reasons of our own we declined the challenge. 



The panorama from Gray's Peak is one to inspire 

 awe and dwell forever in the memory, an alpine wonder- 

 land indeed and in truth. To the north, northwest, 

 and west there stretches, as far as the eye can reach, a 

 vast wilderness of snowy peaks and ranges, many of them 

 with a rosy glow in the sunshine, tier upon tier, terrace 

 above terrace, here in serried ranks, there in isolated 



