We Made The Ascent Of The Peak Just After The First Storm Had Whitened
Its Summit And Brightened The Atmosphere.
The foot-slopes are like
those of the Troy range, only more evenly clad with grasses.
After
tracing a long, rugged ridge of exceedingly hard quartzite, said to be
veined here and there with gold, we came to the North Dome, a noble
summit rising about a thousand feet above the timberline, its slopes
heavily tree-clad all around, but most perfectly on the north. Here
the Rocky Mountain spruce forms the bulk of the forest. The cones
were ripe; most of them had shed their winged seeds, and the shell-like scales were conspicuously spread, making rich masses of brown
from the tops of the fertile trees down halfway to the ground, cone
touching cone in lavish clusters. A single branch that might be
carried in the hand would be found to bear a hundred or more.
Some portions of the wood were almost impenetrable, but in general we
found no difficulty in mazing comfortably on over fallen logs and
under the spreading boughs, while here and there we came to an opening
sufficiently spacious for standpoints, where the trees around their
margins might be seen from top to bottom. The winter sunshine
streamed through the clustered spires, glinting and breaking into a
fine dust of spangles on the spiky leaves and beads of amber gum, and
bringing out the reds and grays and yellows of the lichened boles
which had been freshened by the late storm; while the tip of every
spire looking up through the shadows was dipped in deepest blue.
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