DENVER & RIO GRANDE WESTERN ROUTE. 45 
the uplift came. At that time, owing to the fact that the rocks of 
Pikes Peak are more resistant than those of other parts of the region, 
the mountain stood nearly 5,000 feet above the surface of the plain, 
just as to-day it stands nearly 5,000 feet above the surface of the 
plateau. 
From the plateau the slopes of the mountain above appear to be 
unscalable by a road, and it is only by constant turning and looping 
back upon itself that the road finally reaches what appears from 
below to be the summit but what is really a long spur of the moun- 
tain that branches off to the northwest. The northern slope of 
this spur, up which the traveler came, is very steep, but the opposite 
slope is so gentle that it scarcely can be considered mountainous. 
The difference in the appearance of the two slopes is well shown at 
a place called “the Bottomless Pit.” Here the traveler may stand 
in his automobile and gaze down on the north into a jagged pit about 
1,700 feet deep, whereas on the other side the slope is very gentle. 
As the rocks are the same on both sides of the ridge there must be 
some cause other than rock texture for this great difference in ap- 
pearance. Geologists recognize that the steep, jagged slopes on 
the north side are the result of the action of moving ice, but the 
traveler may inquire: Where is the ice? The climate here is now so 
mild that practically all the snow which falls in the winter is melted 
away during the succeeding summer, but ages ago the climate of 
all the United States was much more severe than it is to-day, and 
large glaciers were formed on almost every mountain peak. The 
most favorable place for the snow to accumulate was on the north 
and east sides, for it was not blown away by gales coming from the 
west, and it was protected from the heat of the sun more than it 
would have been on the other sides. Thus the glaciers were re- 
stricted to the north and east sides, or at least they were more nurner- 
ous and larger there than they were on the other sides. — : 
In that far-off time fairly large glaciers lay on the side of Pikes 
Peak, and they gouged out great amphitheaters or cirques, as they 
are generally called, in the mountain side. In this manner the 
original more gentle slope was converted to nearly vertical walls. 
The rocky material that was removed from these cirques was carried 
down by the glacier and deposited at its extremity as a ridge or mo- 
raine or was washed down Fountain Creek. If the traveler wishes to 
see how steep are the cliffs produced by a glacier he has only to walk 
to the end of the Cogwheel Road and look down a thousand feet or 
so into the rocky basin that the ice has cut. 
