b+

34 CLEAR CREEK CANON.

 

bare, bold rocks, while here and there rose precipitous
sides, scantily covered with stunted, scrawny cedars and
pines. The track twisted and curved about; now appa-
rently we were running up against a lofty wall that
swept up into the sky before our eyes and defied us,
when suddenly we dodged into some opening before
hidden to our view.

“The creek was high from the melting snows, and
down over the rocks and immense boulders that had
fallen from the mountain height, it poured in endless
cascades, foaming, boiling, roaring, rushing on its way.
Often we were completely shut in by the towering hills
before and behind us. Bleak and frowning rocks stood
out over the creek and over the railroad, our train, once
and again, passing completely under some overhanging
bluff. The face of the mountain sometimes assumed
fantastic shapes. At various points the fallen boulders,
torn from the mountain side, had blocked up the stream,
and a path had been blasted through them for our little
railway. One hundred and seventy feet to the mile our
engine climbed through the narrow defile, and out of
the car window we often stretched our heads and
strained our eyes to scale the frowning tops of those
mountain sides, from 500 to 2,500 feet above us. The
only pain I felt in that journey of wonderful delight
was that I could not look out of the car from both sides
at the same moment. Pictures of rarest beauty were
breaking upon the vision. The eye grew fairly weary,
looking upon the wild sublimity and grandeur, and I
was glad to rest.