Rocky Mountain Trip 
liy hurried sketch may help to recall the character end details 
of this fine group. The clouds were constantly hovering about 
and dragging the summits and throwing deep shadows. A few points 
were clear but for a moment. The sun was behind and above, per¬ 
haps a little to the left, so that there was much deep shadow. 
The sun struck the gray smooth surfaces and a thousand points 
glittered like gems. The summits are almost needle sharp and 
the crests are notched, not like /. saw teeth but like a comb 
and the steep sides of the immense precipices are scarred and 
seamed with the sinuous lines of the contorted but generally up¬ 
right crystaline strata. I have never seen, and perhaps never 
shall see again, such a compact cluster of high, steep, rugged 
and totally naked mountain 
- '■•'-V '--■..■•'•'■I 
The color is invariably gray and 
the great proportion of deep, blue gray shadow - prevailing al¬ 
most totally below - added much doubtless to the unusual degree 
of profundity in depth, etc. The low ridges in the middle dis¬ 
tance are somewhat bare above, but below are quite covered with 
grass and willows, with a heavy setting of dark pines b\elow timber 
line. The course of the Rio Pinos could be traced down through 
o J 
'-‘he s.e. o.i. this group and the Rio Grande was visible in a number 
of places throughout its crooked course. The high groups to the 
north and west of the quartzites were but little in view on ac- 
count of the clouds. UncompagBtere loomed up as usual but much 
snowed in. The rocks of the pyramid are all trachytic, horizon¬ 
tally bedded. The group is small, this being the only summit of 
note. The upper valleys here are almost covered by a growth of 
* 
scrub willows. it grows in a curious kind of cluster that from 
