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near the top.  The vertical portion is over 600 feet in height. The snow and ice remain in these crevices thruout the summer, becoming a little discolored, and therefore not so plainly visible in autumn, but brightening up again when snow falls, which is every month of the year.  We saw the cross first from a range far away to the east. It was distinctly seen against the dark granite face of the mountain, which loomed up in the mirage effect to a marvelous height.

Later we found a creek which we knew must come down from the face of the peak, if not from the very foot of the cross.
Climbing was very difficult; a thick virgin forest extending in a belt several miles wide across the base had to be traversed before we reached the final ascent. There we had to stop our animals and proceed on foot. Dr. Hayden, who was always a reckless climber, had the misfortune to fall into one of the mountain torrents crossed during the ascent, but was rescued without much difficulty and pushed forward with the rest.
Then it began to rain, so that we could see nothing, and we resolved to camp overnight,tho we had started out with no provisions but a small lunch.  We made our fires at the timberline, 2,000 feet below the summit, and whiled away the weary hours telling stories and watching the bright speck of light made by the camp-fire of our photographer, W. H. Jackson, who was storm-bound on the ridge to the east.
In the morning, breakfastless and weak, we reascended the mountain. By this time the clouds had parted so that many summits were in sight.  As we stood on the narrow rocky summit we sought the upper end of the stem of the cross, and found that it occupied a long straight gulley, and consisted in the main of whitish glistening ice. Our photographer, from the opposite ridge, got some excellent views of the cross, and these

have been the basis for almost all the illustrations of the mountain and cross which have since appeared.  Some time afterward the artist Thomas Moran went out and painted the mountain, the cross, and the roaring torrents with wonderful truthfulness and skill. 
A notable episode of the descent of this peak was the wonderful storm effects. The sun at our backs broke thru the clouds, and there was immediately projected on the mists that filled the dark gulf to the east a brilliant rainbow - not the arch as usually seen, but the entire circle - a spectral ring, with our shadows thrown across the lower half, our heads appearing in the center.
This mountain is in Central Northern Colorado, some 20 or 30 miles from Leadville, the site of this mining town being then a dense forest.  This was in 187[[strikethrough]] 4 [[/strikethrough]], and in ^[[?]] [[underlined]] passing I tapped with my geological hammer [[/underlined]] on some of the ledges of rusty ore about which a few years later more than 10,000 people had assembled.
I have had some unpleasant experiences with Indians.  I remember one especially in connection with a pretty tough lot of savages then infesting the cliff-house region.
One night our party of six encamped on the river-bottom far down in Utah.  For some reason we did not set a guard, but "hobbled" our mules, and turned them out to graze with a bell-horse as leader. This leadership of the bell-horse is a strange thing.  Explorers and travelers know well that if a bell is put on a horse in a herd, the rest of the animals, particularly if they are mules, will take a strong fancy for him, and follow