APPENDIX S S. 



1799 



of the mining region, except tlie new road to connect Ouray with Mineral City, the 

 terminus of the toll-road to Lake. 



The canon of the river well deserves the name of " Grand " bestowed upon it by 

 geographers. For a long time, as a route of communication, it was deemed impracti- 

 cable and was necessarily avoided. Leaving Silverton, below the crossing- of Mineral 

 Creek, the trail ascends the side of the mountain on the right of the canon, and 

 crossing the ridge of peaks eut through by the Animas at an altitude of 10,400 feet, 

 takes a southwesterly direction. Another trail from Silverton ascends Mineral Creek 

 and Bear Creek, one of its tributaries, to its head, crossing the same mountain range 

 at 11,500 feet, and joining the former trail at Lime Creek. From this point the Sil- 

 verton trail passes to the east of Engineer Mountain, H miles from its base, crossing 

 Cascade Creek, and approaching to the south meets the new toll-road a short distance 

 above the head of the Park. Previous to the building of the Wightman road Silver- 

 ton had no communication with the south save by this trail. Much of the time 

 (probably fully half) the highest portion of the route was passable only on snow- 

 shoes, being even then a dangerous trip, some of- the mail-carriers losing their lives 

 in making the crossing. In early summer the melting snows made the way boggy and 

 miry, and even in the fall, when at its best, the trail is in many places steep and 

 dangerous and passable for light packs only. 



At the mouth of Mineral Creek, the lower point of Baker's Park, the Animas enters 

 its canon, which rapidly narrows; here its elevation is about 9,300 feet, while at the 

 upper part of the park, where it debouches from its canon into the open valley, 6,800, 

 a fall of 2,500 feet in about 26 miles. For this distance it is inaccessible, shut out by 

 great rocky walls, mainly high peaks of quartzite, members of the Great Needles or 

 quartzite crags which stretch across the Vallecito and the Florida to the Animas. 

 The Avails almost close at points, the river rushing through a space of 30 yards from 

 Avail to Avail, the sides of which, almost as hard as steel, seem insuparable obstacles 

 rising up, slightly rounded from a vertical to nearly a thousand feet, at which height 

 a greater outAvard slope occurs. Occasionally there is found a bottom width of 250 

 yards, where grazing is seen. These little parks are, however, but oases in the gen- 

 eral rocky barrenness. The angle from the riA~er up to the mountain summits that 

 tower above from 3,000 to as high as 5,000 feet approaches 45°, and the widening out 

 of the canon makes its upper width from 2 to 3 miles. Here occasionally nature 

 interposed great obstacles to a passage. In a nanxrw bed the riAer ran by AA'ith the 

 velocity of a mountain stream, without foothold between it and the Avails beside it, 

 their inclination so near a vertical as to render the cost of blasting for a roadway a 

 questionable expense. Numerous bridging was to be aA^oided on account of the situa- 

 tion and the spring rise of the riAer. At such places the river was occupied for a 

 passage-way, and these were by far the most expensive points. As the riAer descends 

 there is found a greater Avidth of room, a small "bench" generally betAveen the water 

 and the mountain through which Avas easily effected a clearing giving a passage-way. 



At some points Avhere existed no bench or place for a roadway by the riA'er bank, the 

 mountain and slope being of rock and very steep, a high sustaining wall was neces- 

 sary, in some cases as great as 20 to 30 feet (Fig 1). At other points, the mountain 



Fie. I. 



Fig. II. 



