. Outing. s feet, but he laughed and explainedthat it was no hardship. He had neverworn anything else. We finally accepted the Indians offer,and he led us off over one of the roughest BEYOND THE MEXICAN SIERRAS 223 trails it has ever been my fortune totravel. Out of the gently rolling coun-try we passed, out of the great pines,skirted the upper wall of a magnificentcanon, and then up and up we woundaround a jagged peak until we hadreached an altitude of eleven thousandfeet. From this point we dropped athousand feet or so, came again to aleveler stretch, and at nightfall halted infront of a typ
. Outing. s feet, but he laughed and explainedthat it was no hardship. He had neverworn anything else. We finally accepted the Indians offer,and he led us off over one of the roughest BEYOND THE MEXICAN SIERRAS 223 trails it has ever been my fortune totravel. Out of the gently rolling coun-try we passed, out of the great pines,skirted the upper wall of a magnificentcanon, and then up and up we woundaround a jagged peak until we hadreached an altitude of eleven thousandfeet. From this point we dropped athousand feet or so, came again to aleveler stretch, and at nightfall halted infront of a typical mountain hut, a little dropped below freezing and a crust hadformed on the snow. Our smooth-shodmules slipped dangerously on the rocks,where the snow had blown away and lefta glaze of ice, but we met with nomishap. All day we were surrounded by sceneryof sublime grandeur. Pinnacles andtowers, castles and mighty fortresses ofgranite, canons deep and dark, lay aboutus. At one point a creek fell from the. THE NARROW STREETS OF THE PICTURESQUE OLD TOWN OF CANELAS. larger than the one in which we hadspent the previous night and with tworooms, but otherwise its counterpart. The hut was vacant and we tookpossession. The earthen floor was par-tially covered with snow which haddrifted in between the logs, but a rousingfire of pine knots, a pan of bacon, anda pot of coffee, a comforting pipe, andthen a bed of fragrant fir boughs, uponwhich to recline and watch the glowingcoals, transformed it into a palace ofbliss, to be remembered as the best of allour mountain camps. In the morning the temperature had rocks above to be lost in a cloud mistbelow, where it sent back a thunderingroar from the lower depths. Our trailpassed between wall and torrent midwayof its fall, and we were drenched withspray as we made the passage under it. Presently we began to descend. Atseventy-eight hundred feet the last of thesnow was seen. Traveling improvedperceptibly, and the temperature grewmuch milder.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade, booksubjectsports, booksubjecttravel
