ng snows have washed
out; sometimes between beetling cliffs, often to their very edge, where
hundreds of feet below the Trail the tall trees seemed diminished into
shrubs. Then again the road led over an immense broad terrace, for
thousands of yards around, with a bright lake gleaming in the refracted
light, and brilliant Alpine plants waving their beautiful flowers on its
margin. Still the coveted summit appeared so far off as to be beyond the
range of vision, and it seemed as if, instead of ascending, the entire
mass underneath had been receding, like the mountains of ice over which
Arctic explorers attempt to reach the pole. Now the tortuous
Trail passed through snow-wreaths which the winds had eddied into
indentations; then over bright, glassy surfaces of ice and fragments
of rocks, until the pinnacle was reached. Nearer, along the broad
successive terraces of the opposite mountains, the evergreen pine, the
cedar, with its stiff, angular branches, and the cottonwood, with its
varied curves and bright colours, were crowded into bunches or strung
into zigzag lines, interspersed with shrubs and mountain plants, among
which the flaming cactus was conspicuous. To the right and left, the
bare cones of the barren peaks rose in multitude, with their calm, awful
forms shrouded in snow, and their dark shadows reflected far into the
valleys, like spectres from a chaotic world.

In going through the Raton Pass, the Old Santa Fe Trail meandered up a
steep valley, enclosed on either side by abrupt hills covered with
pine and masses of gray rock. The road ran along the points of varying
elevations, now in the stony bed of Raton Creek, which it crossed
fifty-three times, the sparkling, flitting waters of the bubbling stream
leaping and foaming against the animals' feet as they hauled the great
wagons of the freight caravans over the tortuous passage. The creek
often rushed rapidly under large flat stones, lost to sight for a
moment, then reappearing with a fresh impetus and dashing over
its flinty, uneven bed until it mingled with the pure waters of Le
Purgatoire.

Still ascending, the scenery assumed a bolder, rougher cast; then sudden
turns gave you hurried glimpses of the great valley below. A gentle dell
sloped to the summit of the pass on the west, then, rising on the
east by a succession of terraces, the bald, bare cliff was reached,
overlooking the whole region for many miles, and this is Raton Peak.[74]

The extreme top