Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for TouristsMills, Enos A.
Philosophy
Your National Parks, with Detailed Information for Tourists
Mills, Enos A.
National parks and reserves -- Canada; National parks and reserves -- United States; West (U.S.) -- Guidebooks
Presently my right arm was momentarily cramped, and my heart seemed to
lurch several times. These electric shocks lasted only about two
seconds, but recurred every few minutes. The hair-pulling,
palpitation, and cramps seemed slightly less when I fully relaxed on
the ground. When I tried to climb, I found myself muscle-bound from
the electricity. Points of dry twigs momentarily exhibited tips of
smoky blue flame, and sometimes similar flame encircled green twigs
below the lower limbs.
Later that day I came to North Specimen Mountain. There the electrical
waves weakened or entirely ceased while I was in shadow, but they
remained quite serious in the sun. I breathed only in gasps, and my
heart was violent and feeble by turns. I felt as if cinched in a steel
corset. After sundown I was again at ease and free from this strange
electrical colic, which often worries or frightens strangers the first
time they experience it. I soon forgot my own electrical experiences
in the enjoyment that night of the splendidly brilliant electric
effects beneath the enormous mountain-range of cloud-forms over the
foothills. Its surface shone momentarily like incandescent glass, and
occasionally down the slopes ran crooked rivers of gold.
I have had the good fortune to see geysers by sunlight, by moonlight,
during gray stormy days, and also while the earth around them was
covered with snow.
By moonlight the mountainous National Parks are enchanted lands.
There is a gentleness, a serenity, and a softness that is never known
in daylight. Many a time I have explored all night long. The trail is
strangely romantic when across it fall the moon-toned etchings of the
pines. The waterfalls, crags, mountain-tops, forest glades, and alpine
lakes have marvelous combinations of light and shade, and they stir
the senses like music. I wish that every one might see in the
moonlight the Giant Forest in the Sequoia National Park, or
timber-line in the Rocky Mountain National Park. By moonlight the Big
Trees will stir you with the greatest elemental eloquence. Those who
go up into the sky on mountains in the moonlight will have the
greatest raptures and make the highest resolves.
Miss Edna Smith is one of the most appreciative outdoor women I ever
have known. Years ago I urged her to know the mountains at night. Here
is one of her accounts of a night experience:--
At supper-time the chances seemed against a start. It was raining.
Later the rain stopped, but the full moon was almost lost in a
heavy mist and the light was dim. Mr. S. N. Husted, the guide,
thought an attempt to ascend Long's Peak hardly wise. At eleven
o'clock I went to Enos Mills for advice. He said, "Go." So we
mounted our ponies and started, chilled by the clammy fog about
us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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