Post 01680
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This swift-moving monster disturbed the air, and excited, stampeding, and cyclonic winds flung me headlong, as it tore by with rush and roar. I arose in time to see the entire wreckage deflected a few degrees upward as it shot far out over the cloud-made bay of the ocean. A rioting acre of rock-fragments, broken trees, shattered icebergs, and masses of dusting snow hesitated momentarily in the air, then, separating, they fell whirling, hurtling, and scattering, with varying velocities,–rocks, splintered trees, and snow,–in silent flight to plunge into the white bay beneath. No sound was given forth as they fell into, and disappeared beneath, the agitated sea of clouds. How strange this noiseless fall was! A few seconds later, as the wreckage reached the bottom, there came from beneath the silent surface the muffled sounds of crash and conflict.
The higher mountain-ranges rise far above the zone of life and have summits that are deeply overladen with ancient snow and ice, but the upper slopes and summits of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and the Sierra of California are not barren and lifeless, even though they stand far above the timber-line. There is no other mountain-range on the earth that I know of that can show such a varied and vigorous array of life above the tree-line as do these ranges. In the Alps the upper slopes and summits stand in eternal desolation, without life even in summertime. The icy stratum that overlies the summit Alps is centuries old, and is perpetual down to nine thousand feet. Timber-line there is only sixty-four hundred feet above sea-level. How different the climatic conditions in the Rocky Mountains and in the Sierra, where timber-line is at approximately eleven thousand five hundred feet, or a vertical mile higher than it is in the Alps!
Even the high peaks of this region have touches of plant-life and are visited by birds and beasts. The list of living things which I have seen on the summit of Long’s Peak (14,255 feet above sea-level) includes the inevitable and many-tinted lichens, spike-grass, dainty blue polemonium, and clumps of crimson purple primroses, all exquisitely beautiful. There are straggling bumblebees, grasshoppers, and at least two kinds of prettily robed butterflies. Among the mammals visiting the summit I have seen a mountain lion, a bob-cat, a rabbit, and a silver fox, though only one of each. The bird callers embrace flocks of rosy finches, ptarmigan, and American pipits, and numbers of white-crowned sparrows and juncos, together with a scattering of robins, bluebirds, golden eagles, red-tailed hawks, and hummingbirds!