NARRATIVE AND ITINERARY MOUNT JEFFERSON CASTLE ROCK. 93 



uncovered. These strips were about ten feet lower than the surface of the lava field, and 

 densely filled with firs and pines. Ice-cold brooks, from the melting snow on Mount Jefferson, 

 washed the edges of the pedregal, and occasionally spread into narrow swamps extending to 

 the steep sides of the canon, and completely choked with bushes. Hoping to be able to force 

 our way through these obstacles, we struggled desperately up the southwestern edge for about 

 three miles. A projecting spur here closed in abruptly upon the lava, and rendered further 

 advance impossible. Leaving the rest of the party with the jaded animals, I crossed the stream 

 on a natural bridge formed of an old log, climbed up the side of the lava field, and sometimes 

 leaping over yawning fissures, sometimes winding around them, gradually advanced about a 

 quarter of a mile to what appeared to be a small crater. It was nearly circular in form, and about 

 two hundred yards in diameter, with the lower side partly broken away. A more utterly 

 desolate spot cannot be conceived. No sign of life was visible. Hough masses of dark lava lay 

 piled around like the waves of a stormy sea. Fir-clad mountains reared their inaccessible 

 summits on every side, apparently cutting off retreat ; while Mount Jefferson, without one 

 intervening ridge, towered high above all, rugged with precipices and capped with glittering 

 snow. It was a spot where, in all probability, no human foot had ever before intruded, for 

 even the wild children of the forest abandon it to the fiends and demons of their traditions. 



A high ridge from Mount Jefferson terminated the canon, and rendered further exploration 

 unnecessary, as well as impossible. I returned to the party, and we retraced our steps to the 

 little stream flowing from the westerly canon, and encamped there, with an abundance of fine 

 grass and ice-cold water. 



September 28. Being unwilling to leave without examination the western canon, where we 

 had seen the Indian trail, Mr. Anderson and myself, with two men, started to explore it this 

 morning, leaving the rest of the party in camp. We soon struck the trail, and followed it for 

 about four miles up a little wooded gorge, which gradually turned towards the south. 



Here we found that our &quot;black butte&quot; was in sight, and that the trail apparently led to the 

 prairies near it, through a straight and level valley. We accordingly turned back, fully satisfied 

 that the only way of advancing to the north was to travel down the Mpto-ly-as canon. On 

 breaking up camp we followed the old trail, which took this course. It led us below the lava 

 field, across the two brooks which had flowed by its sides, and then up a long, gentle slope, 

 through an open forest of pine, larch, and fir. We were beginning to congratulate ourselves 

 on the excellence of the trail, when, about six miles from camp, we were suddenly stopped by 

 another precipice bordering the river, and more than 1,000 feet deep by measurement. From 

 the summit, I could see that the ridge, which I had already observed extending from Mount 

 Jefferson to a black peak, continued beyond it, and, without any marked depression, now formed 

 the north side of the river canon, which began to turn towards the east. With much difficulty 

 gaining the river bottom, which was here filled with a tangled mass of small trees and bushes, 

 we toiled on for about three miles further, and then encamped in a narrowstrip of fine bunch grass. 

 Both sides of the canon were here about 1,500 feet high ; and opposite us, some 800 feet above 

 the water, was a large mass of gray conglomerate sandstone* so much resembling the ruins of 

 an old castle that we could hardly believe it the work of nature. It rose abruptly from the 

 dark foliage around it, with its battlements, turrets, and towers, bathed in the light of the 

 setting sun a fitting home for the presiding genius of this wild torrent of the mountains. 



September 29. After travelling a few miles down the canon to-day, the barometer began to 

 leak badly from a crack in the glass cistern. As all the materials for properly repairing it were 



