EDITORIAL 143 



will not stay on the trail at the edge of a precipice two thousand 

 feet sheer. 



Camps of log or stone with comfortable beds and good food are 

 located from fifteen to twenty miles apart, a distance that in rarer 

 atmosphere may easily be accomplished in a day if one has given 

 careful thought to the comfort of his feet. • On a walking trip one's 

 pleasure is a state of feet. 



Trail acquaintances are never forgotten. Bear, deer, mountain 

 goats, bighorn sheep, porcupine and marmots are not inclined to 

 tarry. You are richer for having seen the ptarmigan, the water 

 ousel, the magpie, the mountain bluebird and the white crowned 

 sparrow. Flowers are everywhere ; meadows and hillsides are wild 

 gardens. Dogtooth violets and spring beauty in July are coming 

 through the snowbanks by the millions. Paint brush, lupine, 

 angelica, squaw-grass, gentians are in the profusion that one 

 expects in a wilderness. 



Trail acquaintances are not, however, confined to wild life. 

 Western friendliness is the keynote of the trails and the camps, even 

 though the majority of the people one m.eets are "easterners who 

 have gone west and loosened up" as we heard it aptly expressed. 

 We have spent hours with delightful chance companions and have 

 never known their names nor from where they came. The marvel- 

 ous peaks of the layered rocks, changing color as the sun's position 

 changes ; the deep blue and green of the glacial lakes make all akin 

 in their awe and wonder of the works of their Creator. 



One thing the government yet needs to do for the traveller in the 

 parks is to make it possible for him to know^ the things around him 

 and how they came about as far as man knows. Enos Mills in the 

 Rocky Mountain National Park, has solved the way to do it in his 

 Trail School at Long's Peak Inn. Rooms have been set aside where 

 the flowers, trees and rocks are named and where the usual and the 

 unusual in them are tersely described. Such a place in every park 

 will add much to the education of the people who pass through. 

 An expert nature guide himself, Mr. Mills has quickly recognized 

 such abiUty in others. To him belongs the credit of training the 

 first woman guide Hcensed to take parties through the park. 



