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 their beauty and giving no 

 sign of stress of storm, sweeping upward in 

 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 



