Rocky Mountain Trip 
1 
Aug. 26tli : Morning promised a clear day and we set out 
for the summit of Blanca. Dr. Hayden, Rilson, Atkinson, Redden 
and myself rode up a narrow and steep ridge to timber line. Some 
two hours work. Hitched our mules to the highest bushes or to 
the rocks and began the dreaded and terrible climb, 2600 feet 
vertical and about 6 miles horizontal, with much up and down. 
First up about 1000 feet to the first shoulder of the main south¬ 
ern spur, then down slightly along a saddle and up 500 feet to 
the second and main shoulder, all this distance over the steep¬ 
est possible grades of rough broken, recompacted and loose rock. 
i 
But this much was only the introduction, the prelude to a great 
act. The two miles of serrated sharp and ragged comb that con¬ 
nect this high southern shoulder with the main pyramidal summit, 
which now appeared to the north, seemed a pathway Impossible to 
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mortals. Re pushed steadily forward, crawling and sklppino* and 
A p'oTslng, climbing up and now letting ourselves down until we 
p — 
found ourselves at the base of the last sharp ascent. Hr. Ills on 
and I reached the summit at 10 o’clock 30 minutes, the Others 
shortly following. It seems a day's work to describe the scene - 
nay a month. Let ms jot down a few helps to the memory. The 
sharp, jagged spurs that lead out in four directions to the first 
great shoulders; the mighty amphitheater heads of valleys; the 
awful chasms and dizzy precipices; the crestones dark beneath 
the clouds to the north; the tree dotted slopes and the ribbed 
and scarred summits and the two low passes, Mosca and Music. 
The inimitable park to the west and far beneath us a mysterious 
unreal land, hazy and blue in the distance, hemmed in by bluer 
mountains and doubed wioh fanciful patters of s and cloud 
