Post 00542
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The summit of Pike’s Peak is roomy and comparatively level, and is composed of broken granite, many of the pieces being of large size. A stone house stands upon the top. In this for many years was a government weather-observer. A weather station has just been re-established on its summit. This will be one of a line of high weather stations extending across the continent. This unique station should contribute continuously to the weather news and steadily add to the sum of climatic knowledge.
This one peak has on its high and broken slopes a majority of the earth’s climatic zones, and a numerous array of the earth’s countless kinds of plant and animal life. One may in two hours go from base to summit and pass through as many life zones as though he had traveled northward into the Arctic Circle. Going from base to summit, one would start in the Upper Sonoran Zone, pass through the Transition, Canadian, and Hudsonian Zones, and enter the Arctic-Alpine Zone. The peak has a number of places which exhibit the complexity of climatic zones. In a deep cañon near Minnehaha Falls, two zones may be seen side by side on opposite sides of a deep, narrow cañon. The north side of the cañon, exposed to the sun, has such plants as are found in the Transition Zone, while the cool south side has an Hudsonian flora. Here is almost an actual contact of two zones that outside the mountains are separated by approximately two thousand miles.
The varied climate of this peak makes a large appeal to bird-life. Upward of one hundred species are found here. People from every part of the Union are here often startled by the presence of birds which they thought were far away at home. At the base the melodious meadowlark sings; along the streams on the middle slopes lives the contented water-ouzel. Upon the heights are the ptarmigan and the rosy finch. Often the golden eagle casts his shadow upon all these scenes. The robin is here, and also the bluebird, bluer, too, than you have ever seen him. The Western evening grosbeak, a bird with attractive plumage and pleasing manners, often winters here. The brilliant lazuli bunting, the Bullock oriole, the red-shafted flicker, and the dear and dainty goldfinch are present in summer, along with mockingbirds, wrens, tanagers, thrushes, and scores of other visitants.