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Trumball Journal
Index
THE WASHBURN YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION.
NO. I.
Page 2
For many miles, both up and down the river, on the
side opposite Botteller's, the mountains rise somewhat abruptly, bold and
rugged, to a height of three or four thousand feet above the river. Clumps
of pines and cedars are scattered over them. they remind one very much of
the grandeur and massiveness of the Sierra Nevada Range. A recent
snow-storm had thrown a robe of purity over the scene, which rendered it
more than ordinarily beautiful.
From this point we followed the old Indian trail,
leading up the left bank of the Yellowstone. It was generally from a fourth
to a half-mile distant from the river-bank, and near the first line of
bluffs, which bound the valley or river bottom. During the day we crossed
three small streams, designated as Two-mile Creek and Eight-mile Creek--Nos.
One and Two--being about those distances from Botteller's. At one place the
trail crossed a rocky point, more than three hundred feet above the river,
which there ran beside a precipice. The view was exceedingly fine. The
valley was in sight from the mouth of the caņon, eight miles above,
to a point at least forty miles below. The course of the river could be
plainly discerned by an unbroken line of willows, stretching away to the
north-east, while in the background the lofty, snow-capped peaks glistened
midway between the earth and the cloudless firmament above. We camped at
the mouth of the caņon, where the Yellowstone issues from the
mountains. Above that point there is no open country, until you reach the
basin of the great lake.
During the day plenty of small game was killed,
and the fishing was found to be excellent. Trout and white-fish were
abundant--and such trout! They can only be found in the neighborhood of the
Rocky Mountains, and on the Pacific Slope. Few of them weighed less than
two pounds, and many of them over three. they had not been educated up to
the fly; but when their attention was respectfully solicited to a transfixed
grasshopper, they seldom failed to respond.
During the pleasant evening, and the long summer
twilight peculiar to a northern latitude, some made rough sketches of the
magnificent scenes by which we were surrounded; others wrote up their notes
of the trip, while the rest serenely smoked their pipes, and listened to
reminiscences from each other of by-gone times, or other scenes somewhat
similar to those we then enjoyed.
The day following we continued our way through the
caņon, up the river, which there wound around to the east. The trail
kept near the river, was very rough, and went over several high, rocky
points. Distant views were shut out by the mountains, which constantly
surrounded us. The only features of unusual interest seen during the day
were a beautiful, snow-capped mountain, at least ten thousand feet above the
sea, and the Devil's Slide, similar to a feature so named in Echo Caņon, on
the Union Pacific Railroad, but vastly exceeding that one in size. Two
perpendicular walls of mud and rock run directly down a mountain. They are
about half a mile long, and the larger one a hundred feet high, and thirty
feet across the top. Similar formations extend along the side of the
mountain for some distance, but the rest are much smaller than the two
mentioned. From a distance, the mountain appears to be traversed by a
number of stone-walls running parallel to each other, from the summit to the
base of the mountain, which is shaped like a long hay-stack. The walls are
as regular as if they were a work of art.
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