The tall pines growing on the moraines stood transfigured
in the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin were
masses of orange-yellow, and the late-blooming goldenrods added gold to
gold. Pushing on over my rosy glacial highway, I passed lake after lake
set in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered by
a stream that issues from the amphitheater and links the lakes together;
now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum;
now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded the
view on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about as
regular as artificial embankments, and covered with a superb growth of
Silver Fir and Pine. But this garden and forest luxuriance was speedily
left behind. The trees were dwarfed as I ascended; patches of the alpine
bryanthus and cassiope began to appear, and arctic willows pressed into
flat carpets by the winter snow. The lakelets, which a few miles down
the valley were so richly embroidered with flowery meadows, had here, at
an elevation of 10,000 feet, only small brown mats of carex, leaving
bare rocks around more than half their shores.
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