PEAKS AND PASSES OF COLORADO. 



H. A. CRAFTS. 



My preconceived idea of Cameron pass, 

 Colorado, was that it was abrupt, steep and 

 barren ; something rather awesome, like the 

 Alpine pass in "Excelsior." I was sur- 

 prised and delighted when I saw that, on 

 the contrary, its grades are moderate al- 

 most to gentleness, its length is continuous 

 and its borders are heavily timbered. From 

 Chambers lake, which lies at the Eastern 

 terminus of the pass, to North Park, where 

 the pass ends, is about 20 miles. Going 

 into North Park the pass has a general 

 Southwesterly trend ; yet winds between the 

 wooded slopes of the Medicine Bow range 

 on the North and West, and those of the 

 nearer Rocky mountain range on the South 

 and East, in long and graceful curves. 

 There is no bareness nor desolation, save 

 for a short distance up the pass from Cham- 

 bers lake, where at some time a fire swept 

 through the forest. There, indeed, the 

 heart of the beholder is made sad at so 

 great a destruction of valuable timber and 

 so cruel a disfigurement to the bright face 

 of Nature. Thousands of acres of once fine 

 timber lands now lie almost as blackened 

 and barren as they did the day following 

 their devastation, so hard does Nature find 

 it to renew herself after one of these fires 

 has done its deadly work. It is one of the 

 aims of our general government to devise 

 means of restoring these denuded lands to 

 their former condition of vigorous foresta- 

 tion. 



All over these burnt lands stand the 

 skeletons of the former noble forest trees 

 that clothed them. These make excellent 

 material for fuel, fencing, building, etc., and 

 they are utilized for those purposes to some 

 extent ; but their remoteness from industrial 

 centers and the lack of railroad transpor- 

 tation render them unimportant as articles 

 of commerce. 



Beyond the burnt districts are the virgin 

 forests, dense, dark and beautiful. They 

 mount grandly aloft on either hand until 

 they end at timber line. Beyond that, and 

 visible from the bed of the pass, rise the 

 bare mountain slopes and the crowning 

 peaks of snow. The pass is traversed by a 

 wagon road, in good condition for the 

 greater part of its length, but with here 

 and there a slough, a washout or a collec- 

 tion of dead trees hurled across it by some 

 snow slide. 



An interesting feature of Cameron pass 

 is the divide, or the parting of the waters. 

 This noisy stream, that has made music for 

 us all the way up from Chambers lake, is 

 Joe Wright creek. It flows Eastward and 



empties into Chambers lake, which is tribu- 

 tary to the Cache la Poudre river, and this 

 in turn is tributary to the South Platte 

 river. At the summit of the pass, Joe 

 Wright creek ends, and the Michigan creek 

 begins, only the latter flows in an opposite 

 direction, that is, to the Westward, down 

 into North Park, there joining the waters 

 of the North Platte river. All the way 

 over the pass the traveler does not lose 

 company of one or the other of these so- 

 ciable streams. 



Occasionally we see the footprints of the 

 advance guard of modern industry. To one 

 side of the road, in a steep embankment, is 

 a freshly dug prospect hole. At the sum- 

 mit of the pass is an irrigating ditch, a 

 strange anomaly; for this is at an altitude 

 of 10,000 feet above tidewater and there is 

 not a farm within a radius of 75 miles. 

 Nevertheless, the ditch is of some general 

 utility. The Cache la Poudre watershed 

 being short of irrigation water, an irrigat- 

 ing company concluded to take some from 

 the North Platte watershed. They have 

 turned a portion of the water of the Michi- 

 gan back into the Joe Wright and thus 

 added to the flow of that stream, also of the 

 Cache la Poudre. This provides some 

 extra cubic feet of water per second to 

 the main irrigating canal down on the 

 plains. 



At least twice in our journey over the 

 pass our way was obstructed by fallen trees. 

 These are so large, and it is so evident they 

 were all smitten by the same blow, that 

 the traveler intuitively glances to one side 

 to see whence such a gigantic force could 

 have originated. He is surprised if not awe- 

 stricken to behold a vast opening through 

 the forest above, to the upper limit of tim- 

 ber line, and a view opened to the summit 

 of the range. This is the effect of a snow- 

 slide. A vast body of snow, having accu- 

 mulated in some gulch above timber line, 

 and having become dislodged, started down- 

 ward, gathering force and momentum at 

 each foot traversed, until it became irresist- 

 ible and swept down through the mighty 

 forest, cutting a swath like the scythe of 

 some Titanic mower. Imagine the terrible 

 onward rush of such a destroyer; the crash, 

 the groan, the thunder of the avalanche ! 



One day we made an excursion to Finger, 

 or Sawtooth, mountain, Lake Agnes and 

 Mount Richthoven, 8 miles from Camp 

 Zimmerman. The point of destination was 

 the summit of Richthoven, one of the high- 

 est peaks in Colorado, supposed to be at 

 least 15,000 feet above sea level. We 



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