ight is good and the season yet early, you
can still see the snow in the crevices of the peak, giving the Forest
its name of the Holy Cross. People say there is no historic association
to our West. Once a foolish phrase is uttered, it is surprising how
sensible people will go on repeating it. Take this matter of the "Holy
Cross" name. If you go investigating how these "Holy Cross" peaks got
their names from old Spanish _padres_ riding their burros into the
wilderness, it will take you a hard year's reading just to master the
Spanish legends alone. Then, if you dive into the realm of the cliff
dwellers, you will be drowned in historic antiquity before you know. In
the Glenwood Springs region, you will not find the remnants of
prehistoric people; but you'll find the hot springs.

Just two warnings: one as to hunting; the other, as to mountain
climbing. There is still big game in Colorado Forests--bear, mountain
sheep, elk, deer; and the ranger is supposed to be a game warden; but a
man patrolling 100,000 acres can't be all over at one time. As to
mountain climbing, you can get your fill of it in Grand Canyon, above
Ouray, at Pike's Peak--a dozen places, and only the mountain climber and
his troglodyte cliff-climbing prototype know the drunken, frenzied joy
of climbing on the roof of the earth and risking life and limb to stand
with the kingdoms of the world at your feet. But unless you are a
trained climber, take a guide with you, or the advice of some local man
who knows the tricks and the moods and the wiles and the ways of the
upper mountain world. Looking from the valley up to the peak, a patch of
snow may seem no bigger to you than a good-sized table-cloth. Look out!
If it is steep beneath that "table-cloth" and the forest shows a slope
clean-swept of trees as by a mighty broom, be careful how you cross and
recross following the zigzag trail that corkscrews up below the far
patch of white! I was crossing the Continental Divide one summer in the
West when a woman on the train pointed to a patch of white about ten
miles up the mountain slope and asked if "that" were "rock or snow." I
told her it was a very large snow field, indeed; that we saw only the
forefoot of it hanging over the edge; that the upper part was supposed
to be some twenty miles across. She gave me a look meant for Mrs.
Ananias. A month later, when I came back that way, the train suddenly
slowed up. The slide had come down and lay in white heaps across