98 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES. 



valley, and the traveler on the railroad has no opportunity of seeing 

 the results of its work. 



The attractions of Buena Vista consist of an admirable climate and 

 beautiful surroundings for summer visitors; the ascent of Mount 

 Princeton, which is a little higher than Pikes Peak; and Cottonwood 

 Hot Springs, at the mouth of the canyon 6 miles above Buena Vista. 

 It is proposed to lay a pipe line down to the town and establish bath- 

 houses so that more visitors may be able to bathe in the mineral 

 water. Buena Vista was established in 1879 and is the seat of gov- 

 ernment of Chaffee County. 



Immediately north of the station at Buena Vista the traveler 

 may notice on both sides of the track huge boulders that are arranged 

 in the form of a fan, similar to the great fan of boulders at the 

 mouth of Brown Canyon. The boulders at Buena Vista may not 

 be so large as those at the mouth of Brown Canyon, but many of 

 them measure from 12 to 15 feet in their longest diameters. 



Nearly 2 miles from the station the Denver & Rio Grande Western 

 Railroad enters Wildhorse Canyon, a small canyon cut in the massive 

 granite. The automobile road does not follow the river in this part 

 of its course, but keeps to the west (left) on the unconsolidated 

 gravel that fills the old valley. This canyon is not so deep nor so 

 continuous as Brown Canyon, and for some distance in its middle 

 part the granite in the west wall gives place to gravel. At its upper 

 end, on the right (east) side of the track, a great block of granite 

 stands like a sentinel. This block is shown in Plate XL VII, A. 

 Here the traveler may look back and see that the gravel terrace on 

 the west side of the river stands at about the same level as the top 

 of the granite wall that bounds the canyon on that side. From this 

 fact it is apparent that at one time the old valley was deeply filled 

 with gravel, which was brought down from the high mountains on 

 the west, and that the stream was crowded eastward upon the rocky 

 slope of the valley. Later, when the stream had removed some of 

 this gravel and resumed the work of cutting its valley down, it 

 again flowed on the hard granite, but far to the east of its former 

 course. However, a stream has no power of itself to alter a course 

 it once establishes, and so Arkansas River persisted and cut the 

 canyon in the hard rock. 



On emerging from Wildhorse Canyon the traveler may obtain a 

 much better view of Mount Yale (14,172 feet) than that which he 

 obtained near Buena Vista. Here it appears as a single peak directly 

 across the valley, with the sharp summit of Mount Princeton on the 

 left and the great rounded mass of Mount Harvard (14,399 feet) on 

 the right. A little farther along he may see a great hollow that 

 apparently has been scooped out of the east slope of Mount Harvard 

 on the side facing Arkansas Valley. This hollow is semicircular in 



