The last miner I saw gave me explicit
directions, and I left the track and struck upwards into the
Icy
solitudes - sheets of ice at first, then snow, over a foot deep,
pure and powdery, then a very difficult ascent through a pine
forest, where it was nearly dark, the horse tumbling about in
deep snowdrifts. But the goal was reached, and none too soon.
At a height of nearly 12,000 feet I halted on a steep declivity,
and below me, completely girdled by dense forests of pines, with
mountains red and glorified in the sunset rising above them, was
Green Lake, looking like water, but in reality a sheet of ice two
feet thick. From the gloom and chill below I had come up into
the pure air and sunset light, and the glory of the unprofaned
works of God. It brought to my mind the verse, "The darkness is
past, and the true light now shineth"; and, as if in commentary
upon it, were the hundreds and thousands of men delving in dark
holes in the gloom of the twilight below.
O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices,
O delved gold, the wailer's heap,
God strikes a silence through you all,
He giveth His beloved sleep.
It was something to reach that height and see the far off glory
of the sunset, and by it to be reminded that neither God nor His
sun had yet deserted the world. But the sun was fast going down,
and even as I gazed upon the wonderful vision the glory vanished,
and the peaks became sad and grey. It was strange to be the only
human being at that glacial altitude, and to descend again
through a foot of untrodden snow and over sloping sheets of ice
into the darkness, and to see the hill sides like a firmament of
stars, each showing the place where a solitary man in his hole
was delving for silver. The view, as long as I could see it, was
quite awful. It looked as if one could not reach Georgetown
without tumbling down a precipice. Precipices there were in
plenty along the road, skirted with ice to their verge. It was
the only ride which required nerve that I have taken in Colorado,
and it was long after dark when I returned from my exploit.
I left Georgetown at eight the next morning on the Idaho stage,
in glorious cold. In this dry air it is quite warm if there are
only a few degrees of frost. The sun does not rise in Georgetown
till eleven now; I doubt if it rises there at all in the winter!
After four hours' fearful bouncing, the baggage car again
received us, but this time the conductor, remarking that he
supposed I was just traveling to see the country, gave me his
chair and put it on the platform, so that I had an excellent view
of that truly sublime canyon.
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