t for the most part the
higher slopes and culminating summits are broken and angular.
Altogether, the Rocky Mountain area in Colorado presents a delightful
diversity of parks, peaks, forests, lakes, streams, canons, slopes,
crags, and glades.

On all of the higher summits are records of the ice age. In many
places glaciated rocks still retain the polish given them by the Ice
King. Such rocks, as well as gigantic moraines in an excellent state
of preservation, extend from altitudes of twelve or thirteen thousand
feet down to eight thousand, and in places as low as seven thousand
feet. Some of the moraines are but enormous embankments a few hundred
feet high and a mile or so in length. Many of these are so raw, bold,
and bare, they look as if they had been completed or uncovered within
the last year. Most of these moraines, however, especially those below
timber-line, are well forested. No one knows just how old they are,
but, geologically speaking, they are new, and in all probability were
made during the last great ice epoch, or since that time. Among the
impressive records of the ages that are carried by these mountains,
those made by the Ice King probably stand first in appealing
strangely and strongly to the imagination.

All the Rocky Mountain lakes are glacier lakes. There are more than a
thousand of these. The basins of the majority of them were excavated
by ice from solid rock. Only a few of them have more than forty acres
of area, and, with the exception of a very small number, they are
situated well up on the shoulders of the mountains and between the
altitudes of eleven thousand and twelve thousand feet. The lower and
middle slopes of the Rockies are without lakes.

The lower third of the mountains, that is, the foothill section, is
only tree-dotted. But the middle portion, that part which lies between
the altitudes of eight thousand and eleven thousand feet, is covered
by a heavy forest in which lodge-pole pine, Engelmann spruce, and
Douglas spruce predominate. Fire has made ruinous inroads into the
primeval forest which grew here.

A large portion of the summit-slopes of the mountains is made up of
almost barren rock, in old moraines, glaciated slopes, or broken
crags, granite predominating. These rocks are well tinted with
lichen, but they present a barren appearance. In places above the
altitude of eleven thousand feet the mountains are covered with a
profuse array of alpine vegetation. This is especi