|
Washburn
Report Index
YELLOWSTONE EXPEDITION OF 1870
Page 21
the lower end of the lake, at its southeast angle.
Here a large stream comes in through a swampy valley grown up with willows,
and about four miles in width. The whole valley is filled with pools of
water, a resort for great numbers of water-fowl, but the soil bears up the
weight of a horse, though muddy on its surface. The ground was trodden by
thousands of elk and sheep. Bear tracks and beaver trails were also
numerous, and occasionally was seen the footstep of a California lion. The
lake shore was barricaded with stranded pine trees, in huge rafts of
driftwood. We endeavored to cross the valley on the beach, but after
struggling through the tangled willows for two hours, found the creek
channel to be a wide and deep slough, impassable for man or beast.
Retracing our steps, we rode along the mountain side up the valley a couple
of miles, and camped on its border, and the confluence of a small stream.
Distance, 10 miles. During the night we were several times disturbed by the
dismal screaming of California lions, and in the morning found their huge
tracks close around the camp.
Seventeenth day -- September 7. -- In
company with Mr. Langford, I climbed to the summit of a neighboring peak,
the highest of the east range. We were four hours reaching the highest
point, climbing for over a mile over shelly, feldspathic granite, after
leaving our horses at the limit of pines.
Summit at noon, barometer, 20.35; thermometer, 65°;
elevation, 10,327 feet.
The view from this peak commanded completely the
lake, enabling us to sketch a map of its inlets and bearings with
considerable accuracy. On the southwestern portion of the lake rose a high
mountain of a yellow rock, forming a divide or water-shed in the center of
the great basin, beyond which the waters flowed south and west. The stream
we failed in crossing on the previous day rises in the southeast range,
running east several miles, and joining another stream from the southwest at
Bridger's Lake, a sheet of water about to miles in diameter, at the foot of
a rocky peak about twenty-five miles to the south, from whence the stream
flows due north, in a straight valley, to the Yellowstone Lake. This valley
has a uniform width of about three miles, is level and swampy through its
whole extent, with numerous lakelets of considerable size scattered at
intervals over its surface. South of Bridger's Lake, and beyond the Snake
River divide, were seen two vast columns of vapor, thirty miles away, which
rose at least 500 feet above the tops of the hills. These were twenty times
as large as any we had previously seen, but lay a long distance out of our
course, and were not visited. Looking east, one mountain succeeds another,
with precipitous ravines, volcanic, rugged, and in many places impassable,
as if all the fusible portions of the mountains had melted and run away,
leaving a vast cinder behind. There were no ranges of peaks; it was a great
level plain of summits, with the softer portions melted out, the elevations
all coming up to the same level, and capped with horizontal beds of surface
lava. This formation extended to the limit of vision. The deep and narrow
valleys were grassed and timbered, had sparkling streams, and furnished
basins for numbers of small lakes; in fact, there are lakes here everywhere,
on the summits of the mountains and on their terraced slopes, in valleys and
in ravines, of all sizes, shapes, and qualities of water.
Descending the mountain we followed the trail of
the party, crossing the stream a mile above our camp, where it is 100 feet
wide and 3 feet deep, with a moderate current. Thence we followed to the
right through a beautiful open forest, across the grassy valley, passing two
little gems
Go to
Page 22
|
