s Mount Whitney, our first in rank;
Colorado's Mount Massive attains an altitude only four feet less than
Washington's Mount Rainier, which ranks third. In point of mass, one
seventh of Colorado rises above ten thousand feet of altitude. The state
contains three hundred and fifty peaks above eleven thousand feet of
altitude, two hundred and twenty peaks above twelve thousand feet, and a
hundred and fifty peaks above thirteen thousand feet; besides the
forty-two named peaks which exceed fourteen thousand feet, there are at
least three others which are unnamed.

Geologists call the Rockies young, by which they mean anything, say,
from five to twenty million years. They are more or less contemporary
with the Sierra. Like the Sierra, the mountains we see to-day are not
the first; several times their ranges have uplifted upon wrecks of
former ranges, which had yielded to the assaults of frost and rain.
Before they first appeared, parts of the Eastern Appalachians had
paralleled our eastern sea coast for many million years. The Age of
Mammals had well dawned before they became a feature in a landscape
which previously had been a mid-continental sea.

II

The Front Range, carrying the continental divide, is a gnarled and
jagged rampart of snow-splashed granite facing the eastern plains, from
which its grim summits may be seen for many miles. Standing out before
it like captains in front of gray ranks at parade rise three conspicuous
mountains, Longs Peak, fifty miles northwest of Denver, Mount Evans,
west of Denver, and Pikes Peak, seventy miles to the south. Longs Peak
is directly connected with the continental divide by a series of jagged
cliffs. Mount Evans is farther away. Pikes Peak stands sentinel-like
seventy-five miles east of the range, a gigantic monadnock, remainder
and reminder of a former range long ages worn away.

Though many massive mountains of greater altitude lie farther west, the
Front Range for many reasons is representative of the Rockies' noblest.
To represent them fully, the national park should include the three
sentinel peaks and their neighborhoods, and it is earnestly hoped that
the day will come when Congress will recognize this need. At this
writing only the section of greatest variety and magnificence, the
nearly four hundred square miles of which Longs Peak is the climax, has
been thus entitled. In fact, even this was unfortunately curtailed in
the making, the straight southern boundary ha