Whether you go by the Denver or the Leavenworth route, the best way of getting into the South Park is to strike the Arkansas River, and follow it up till you enter the park, in which you will find the head waters both of this river and of the Platte, separated by a divide of only five miles. Or if you wish for something easier than the South Park, and which would enable you to dispense with waggon, mules, and a man of your own, you might take the North Park at the foot of Long’s Peak. There is a good path to it from St. Vrain and Burlington, of forty-five miles; and I have no doubt but that, at the right season, you might find some gentleman, or some party, going up into the mountains for some little camping out, and who would be glad of your company. There is good shooting and fishing about Long’s Peak, and you can see from the plains the grassy park at its south side. Or if you are more adventurously disposed, you may still be suited. The Pacific Railway is at present opened for traffic as far as Shyenne. It is, however, completed for thirty miles further, to Forts Sanders and Halleck. This takes you into the very heart of the mountains. I had the offer of being carried on to this point, if I wished it, on a construction train, and I have no doubt but that the engineer or contractor would grant the same favour to any traveller who requested it. This would bring you almost upon one of the most celebrated sporting-grounds of the mountains, the Laramie Plains; or if you could not manage it in this way, or if you take waggon and mules, it would be better to leave the rail at Shyenne. You would then start at once from the present terminus of the railway, and after having kept a course of north by west for thirty or forty miles, you would find yourself on the Laramie Plains. This is not a park among the mountains, but a vast expanse of open table-land. One advantage you would have on this ground is, that a detachment of the United States army is quartered up here, and the officers are always ready to give any assistance in their power to gentlemen who are out on the plain for sporting. What calls for more enterprise in those who camp out on the Laramie Plains is that they are still open to Indian raids, and that they are exposed, as might be expected, to very violent wind-storms. [Sidenote: _Sporting in the Rocky Mountains._]