"PIKE'S PEAK, OR BUST!"

Bush Advocate, Volume V, Issue 354, 16 August 1890, Page 10

"PIKE'S PEAK, OR BUST!"

•""" In 1888 tourists went to the summit of Pike's .Jteakonfoot, on pony-back, or as members of tji£ "burro brigade.'? "Barro" is Mexican .for/ donkey. The long and weary, ride from ,3jJaijitpu, up to 'the old Ute Indian trail, to the ' summit (14,700 ft. high) took twelve hours. 'Thg time occupied, in the descent dependod mainly on the taste and fancy of the descender. I» 18b9 there was a earriago-rpad all the way to the. summit^ and the expedition was accomplished in six hovira up and three hours down. In 1890 thero will be a railway to the top of Pike's Peak, a little over nine miles in length. EdQh train will convoy 150 people. The trip from Mauitou to the summit will take an hour and threo-iiuartera, and down trip half-au-hour less. The line will cost over a hundred thousand pounds. That is tho way they do things in Colorado. By the exercise of a little imagination I might write an accosnt of a journey up Pike's Peak by mil which I made in September, 1890. But a sincere respect for historical accuracy suggests that it may, on the whole, be better to confine myself at present to tho carriage, or, more strictly speaking, waggon, drive which I enjoyed in September, 1889. We want a new field for excursions. Switzerland is played ont, Norway monotonous. We are weary or all tho Mediterranean countries. We" have all been to India, moat of us have beea to Australia; nobody wants to go to Russia : and Africa is not yet organised. There is not orach of the globs' • "" c "»ihe globe- j tifouer; but there areat" " „.io can find no rest for their soles wnen tcotting-timc comes round. Tp them I beg leave respectfully to cainmend Colorado. Getting there is quite easy. "You' take the 5 p.m. train from Chicago to Denver, and thero you are. Everybody knows how to get to Chicago. There is plenty of variety in Colorado. You can have it very flat, or you can take it us rough as you please. If, deluded by Buffalo Bill's theatrical presentation of the cirouß "cowboy" at Olympia, you wont a turn of rancho life, you will finct plenty of ranche life, you -will find plenty of prairie, and a very little ranching will satof y. You had much better get to the Rocky Mountains as quickly a/3 possible, and there you will have novelty 'to your heart's content, the very finest air in the world, excellent shooting and fishing, stupendous scenery, and Pike's Peak. Last September we made a party in Denver to bo up Pike's Peak. Our route lay south toColorado Springs, but asf it was ver^ hot, with, aicorching wind coming off the plains, we did not tarry at that handsome to wn (where, by the way, the fine hotel is owned and run by decent Dundee people), but went on to Manitou. Springs for the night. Early next morning we 6tafted by a train on the bewilderiiiglypicturesque Colorado Midland Railway, and after passing through tunnels after tunnels, rounding terrific corners ia canons, and crossing ravines and rivers on gossamer tresse^hwdges of horrifying height aaid fragility, we arrived at Cascade, a place which had no existence twelve months previous, bat where we found a magnificent hotel amongst the pine woodaon the mountain slope. Drawn np at the station was a row of large foar-horse waggons, holding eight persona each, built like the chars-d-hanc on which Cook's tourists are driven to Fontainebleau, and on the back of each waggon, in huge letters, was painted the exhilarating legend : w Pike's Pbaje, or Bust 1" "Or Bust" waa explained to me to bo the forcible and concise equivalent in , Western American language for our Anglo -Saxon phrase, "or perish in tho attempt." Blazoned on tho back of each wagon, it announced the driver's determination to " get there" or bust" the entire equipage, including of, course the tourists, who, when they have paid their fares, are not - considered of much account in. the Greut Wild The waggon we selected held eight persons inside, and thero was a vacant seat beside the driver. I took that seat ; I generally do when lam on diligences and coaches ; it is the beet seat for seeing, and the occupant enjoys the society and the conversation of the driver. The gentleman who drove that waggon up Pike's Peak was the most versatile ana picturesque liar I have met, and I hare met some accomplished liars in my time. He promptly discerned that I was a " tenderfoot," and therefore a fit subject, and for several hours he entertained me with a eeiies of astounding statements os to his fersonal prowess and his adventures among ndjans, Texan desperadoes, sanguinary cowboys, wild animals, and civilised gamblers and simpers. Add to this that ke> was an absolnte master of the art and science of plain and ornamental profanity, and you can readily realise what a really delightful companion he •was. Oar road kept winding up, through valleys and ravines, past rushing streams, into pinewoods and out again, for sixteen miles, until we had passed toe timber lino and emerged on tho bare mountain, where we felt very much out of the world, and very much above the world as well. The views were extensive and imposing, but it was only the increasing cold and a perceptible difficulty in breathing that showed us to what a height wa really had attained ; and when at last we reached the great rock-strewn plateau which forms ths summit, some pt our . party were seized with, the genuine " mountain Bicknesß." For wo were at the altitude of 14,700 ft ., higher than the- Matterhorn, only I,oooft. lower than Mount Blanc ; and instead of climbing up over ico and rocks with ropes and; alpenstocks, we hod driven in a carriage-and-four up a fourtean-feet wide road with a gradient seldom exceeding ten per cent. On the top we found the usual rough stone house which is always to be found on the top of every much-frequented mountain, and there we also found the hot coffee and the boiled eggs of the lower world. Art was represented even up there by a photographer, who " took" us in a group, charged us a dollar each, and faithfully promised to send the photos to Denver, which, I need hardly add, he never did. It was oil our dowa journey that I prepared for the "bust," My friend the driver had ! gazed on the wine when it was red during our stay on the summit, and ho gave us a specimen of how an onligutened citizen of a great Republic can drive down a mountain. Of course there Was not even the theory of a fence, at any part of the road, to keep us from falling into the great hereafter, if anything had frightened the 'horses and run our wheels off the track. But we thundered down in grand style and in perfect safety, and when. we drew up at tho Cascade Hotel we all felt that wo had 1 had a great exp'uionca, if not a great escape, and that "Pike's Peak, or Bust!" meant considerably more than we imagined it did when we started.