Post 00397
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Helen Hunt, whose books helped awaken the American people to the injustice done the Indian and to an appreciation of the scenic grandeur of the West, lived for many years at the foot of this peak. Much of her writing was done from commanding points on the peak. She was temporarily buried on Cheyenne Mountain, and on her former grave has accumulated a large cairn of stones, contributed singly by appreciative pilgrims.
South Cheyenne Cañon, like Yosemite, gives a large, clear, and pleasing picture to the mind. This is due to the individuality and the artistic grouping of the beauty and grandeur of the cañon. The cañon is so narrow, and its high walls so precipitous, that it could justly be called an enormous cleft. At one point the walls are only forty feet apart; between these a road and a swift, clear stream are crowded. Inside the entrance stand the two “Pillars of Hercules.” These magnificent rock domes rise nearly one thousand feet, and their steep, tree-dotted walls are peculiarly pleasing and impressive. Prospect Dome is another striking rock point in this cañon. The cañon ends in a colossal cirque, or amphitheatre, about two hundred and fifty feet deep. Down one side of this a stream makes its seven white zigzag jumps.
Pike’s Peak wins impressiveness by standing by itself. Cheyenne Cañon is more imposing by being alone,–away from other cañons. This cañon opens upon the plains. It is a cañon that would win attention anywhere, but its situation is a most favorable one. Low altitude and a warm climate welcome trees, grass, bushes, and many kinds of plants and flowers. These cling to every break, spot, ledge, terrace, and niche, and thereby touch and decorate the cañon’s grim and towering walls with lovely beauty. Walls, water, and verdure–water in pools and falls, rocks in cliffs, terraces, and domes, grass and flowers on slopes and terraces, trees and groves,–a magnificence of rocks, a richness of verdure, and the charm of running water–all unite in a picturesque association which makes a glorious and pleasing sunken garden.