STEEP TRAILS 



portion of the right lateral. From the top of 

 the moraine, still ascending, we passed for a 

 mile or two through a forest of mixed growth, 

 mainly silver fir, Patton spruce, and mountain 

 pine, and then came to the charming park 

 region, at an elevation of about five thousand 

 feet above sea-level. Here the vast continu- 

 ous woods at length begin to give way under 

 the dominion of climate, though still at this 

 height retaining then* beauty and giving no 

 sign of stress of storm, sweeping upward hi 

 belts of varying width, composed mainly of one 

 species of fir, sharp and spiry in form, leav- 

 ing smooth, spacious parks, with here and 

 there separate groups of trees standing out in 

 the midst of the openings like islands in a lake. 

 Every one of these parks, great and small, is 

 a garden filled knee-deep with fresh, lovely 

 flowers of every hue, the most luxuriant and 

 the most extravagantly beautiful of all the 

 alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my moun- 

 tain-top wanderings. 



We arrived at the Cloud Camp at noon, but 

 no clouds were in sight, save a few gauzy 

 ornamental wreaths adrift in the sunshine. 

 Out of the forest at last there stood the moun- 

 tain, wholly unveiled, awful in bulk and ma- 

 jesty, filling all the view like a separate, new- 

 born world, yet withal so fine and so beautiful 



264 



