Few places in this world are more dangerous than home.
Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care,
save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty
into vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try these
so-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill,
they cure a thousand.
All the passes make their steepest ascents on the eastern flank. On this
side the average rise is not far from a thousand feet to the mile, while
on the west it is about two hundred feet. Another marked difference
between the eastern and western portions of the passes is that the
former begin at the very foot of the range, while the latter can hardly
be said to begin lower than an elevation of from seven to ten thousand
feet. Approaching the range from the gray levels of Mono and Owen's
Valley on the east, the traveler sees before him the steep, short passes
in full view, fenced in by rugged spurs that come plunging down from the
shoulders of the peaks on either side, the courses of the more direct
being disclosed from top to bottom without interruption. But from the
west one sees nothing of the way he may be seeking until near the
summit, after days have been spent in threading the forests growing on
the main dividing ridges between the river canons.
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