W. from Continental Divide over Shoshone Lake to the Grand Teton, Yellowstone Park, U.S.A.

Publication

W. from Continental Divide over Shoshone Lake to the Grand Teton, Yellowstone Park, U.S.A.

Description

You are standing at a turn of the road that runs across the great crooked mountain-ridge known as the Continental Divide. The ridge at its highest point reaches over 8,300 feet. Yellowstone Lake lies off behind you and at your left. It is Shoshone Lake that you see now beyond the thick growth of spruces, pines and firs-a 12-mile area of clear waters. the ridge up here forms the decisive "divide" or water-shed between the two lake basins whose waters are destined for such diverse journeys. The waters of Shoshone lake flow off through the Snake River and the Columbia, pouring into the Pacific Ocean below Astoria. The floods of the Yellowstone are contributed to the Missouri and so to the Mississippi, reaching the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans. Thus it comes about that a summer rain-cloud, drifting over this roadway and drenching passing tourists, might contribute most of its wealth to the Pacific or to the Gulf, just according to the way in which the wind happened to be blowing on that particular afternoon! There are find land-locked salmon down there in the lake well worth a sportsman's time. park regulations permit fishing to any reasonable amount for sport and camp supplies, though shooting animals or birds is absolutely prohibited. The snow-covered peaks over there on the southwestern horizon fifty miles away are the Three Tetons or Pilot Knobs, famous landmarks of the central Rockies. The Grand Teton (13,700 feet high), was first climbed in 1872. (See H.M. Chittenden: "Yellowstone National Park," also encyclopaedia articles on the subject.) From Notes of Travel, No. 13, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.