Music Welcome to snoozecast. The podcast is on, to help you fall asleep. Find us at snoozecast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share us with a friend. This episode is brought to you by Great Masses of Billowy Clouds. Tonight, we'll read an excerpt about the mountains of Colorado from the land of Enchantment written by Lillian Whiting and published in 1909. Pike's Peak is one of Colorado's most iconic mountains, standing at over 14,000 feet. Located near Colorado Springs, it is known as one of the state's prominent 14ers, and is accessible via hiking, a scenic highway, or the historic Cog Railway. The peak has inspired creativity, including the song America the Beautiful, and offers breathtaking panoramic views from the summit. It holds cultural, historical, and geological significance, attracting adventures and visitors year- around. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now, take a few deep breaths. and ever the spell of beauty came, and turned the drowsy world to flame, Emerson. In the picturesque region of Pike's Peak, there is grouped such an array of scenic wonders as our unrivaled within the limits of any corresponding area in the entire world.

To this region, Colorado Springs is the gateway. And the poetic little city is already famous as one of the world resorts whose charm is not exclusively restricted to the summer. The winter is also a luring for Colorado is the land of perpetual sunshine. turns off the steam heat and sits with open windows in December. The air is electric, exhilarating. The cog wheel road, a pikes peak, is stopped. But almost any of the other excursions one can take as enjoyably as in summer. The east is, apparently, under the delusion that the land is covered with snow up to the very summit of pikes peak. On the contrary, the ground is bare and dry. The birds are singing. The sun shines for all, and the everlasting hills silhouette themselves against the blue sky in all their grandeur. One easily slips into all the charm and fascination of Colorado days through these resplendent winters when there are two hours more of light and sunshine in Colorado on account of its altitude than in any state to the eastward.

The climate of Colorado Springs has a perfection that has remarked even in the centennial state, where in every part the climate is unsurpassed in sunshine and exhilaration. especially however,

is Colorado Springs a summer resort

as is Saratoga or Newport or Bar Harbor. Its season is increasingly brilliant and crowded. People come to stay a day and prolong it to a week or come for a week and prolong their stay to a month. The driving is fine. The motor cars are abundant. The excursions are delightful and the air is as curative and exhilarating as is possible to conceive. The inner glories of the Rocky Mountains, with their vast canyons and giant peaks, their waterfalls dashing over precipices hundreds of feet in height, the fascinating glens and mesas for camping excursions or for scientific research and study are all reached by this gateway of Colorado Springs. Pike's Peak, the stupendous continental monument, dominates the entire region. The atmospheric effects around its summit offer a perpetual panorama of kaleidoscopic changes of color and cloud forms. Looking out on the peak from Colorado Springs, three miles from its base, there are hours when it seems to be actually approaching with such swift, though stately measure. That one involuntarily shrinks back from the window in a rational alarm, lest the grim monster shall bear down upon it with a force inevitable as fate.

Disasterous, as a colossal iceberg, wandering from polar seas and sweeping down with irresistible force against the side of a transatlantic liner. a lightning flash flash of instantaneous, unreasoning vision, one beholds in imagination the impending destruction of a city. It becomes a thing endowed with volition, a weird uncanny monster, the abode of the gods who have reared their

monuments and established their pleasure grounds in their strange, fantastic garden at its foot. Again, the pike unfolds itself in clouds and secure in this drapery retires altogether from sight as if weary of being the object of public view. It is as if the inmates of a house feeling an invasion of public interest, should turn off the lights, draw the curtains, and close the shutters as a forceful intimation of their preferences for privacy and their decision to exclude the matting crowd. Sometimes the peak will flaunt itself in glorious apparel and gird itself in strength, with light it will deck itself as with a garment. It surprises a sunrise with the reflection of glory transfigured into unspeakable respondents. It is the royal monarch to which every inhabitant of the Pike's Peak region, every sojourner in the land must pay his tribute. The day is fair or foul, according his pikes peak shall smile or frown. All the cycles of the eternal ages have left on its summit their records, The silent and hidden romance of the air.

The scientist alone may translate this aerial hieroglyphic. Omen's and signs that fill the air to him authentic witness bear This monumental peak of the continent shrouds in oblivion its mystic past, and still the handwriting on the wall may be read by him who holds the key to all this necromancy. The record of the ages is written on parchment that will never crumble. The mysteries of the very creation itself of all this vast and marvelous west of infinite expanse of sea and of volcanic fires that swallowed up the waters and crystallized them into granite. This very record of Titanic processes is written in mystic characters in that far upper air where the lofty peak reigns in approachable majesty. For while there are other peaks in the Rocky Mountains as high and longs peak even exceeds an altitude. There is no other which rises so distinctly alone, and which so supremely dominates an infinite plateau that extends like the ocean beyond the limit of vision. There is one glory of the moon and another glory of the stars as well as the glory of the sun in this mountain region of Colorado Springs. The sunsets over the mountains are marked by the most gorgeous phenomena of color, before whose intensity all the hues of a painter's palette pale. The gates of the New Jerusalem seem to open. Great masses of billowy clouds in deepest, gold, hang in the air. The rainbow hues of all the summers that have shown upon earth since the first rainbow was set in the heavens reflect themselves in a thousand shimmering cloud shapes. It is one of the definite things of the tourist's day to watch from the western terrace of the antlers, these unrivaled sunset effects and wind. Later, still in compliance with the unwritten laws that prevail in the empire of transcendent beauty.

Dinner is served at small tables on the terrace.

With the flowers that formed the centerpiece of each table, the gleam of exquisite cut glass and silver, and the music from an orchestra hidden behind the palms, and tall roses that fling a thousand fragrances on the enchanted air all blend as elements

of the fairy-scene whose background is a panoramic picture of mountains and sky.

The visitor realizes an atmosphere of enchantment that one might well cross a continent to gain. Again, there is the glory of the night. A young moon glances shyly over the mountain summit and swiftly retires to her mysterious realms on the other side. Each ensuing night she ventures still further afield, gazing still longer at the world. She is visiting before she can wings her flight down the western sky. Posing for a tremulous moment on the very crest of the mountains air she is lost to the sight in the vague distance beyond. The stars come and go in impressive troops and processions.

They float up from behind the mountains till one questions as to whether the other side is not a vast realm of stardust in process of crystallizing into planets and stars. This one then at last arrived at the land that is the forge of the gods who created? May one hear, surprise, the very secrets of the universe. Perhaps some dim, mysterious underworld lies over that colossal range, in which celestial mechanism is at work, sending forth and withdrawing the shining planetary visitants. So continuous is the procession of stars through all the hours of the night. star star, as it rises over the mountains, or sets behind them, pauses for an instant on the crest for pre-liminary survey, or parting glance of the world it is entering or leaving. It is still in the realms of doubt as to whether there may

be discovered a royal road to learning, but a royal road to the summit of Pike's Peak. than 14,000 feet above sea level has been since 1890 in a accomplished fact in the Manitou. And Pike's Peak Cogwheel Road, starting from Ingolman's Glen, one of the famous resorts of Manitou. This lovely town, that dreams away its summer at the base of Pike's Peak, guarded by precipitous mountain walls, is connected with Colorado Springs by Electric Trolley, and the little journey of four miles is one of the pleasure excursions of the region. The root lies past the garden of the gods, where the curious shapes of red sandstone loom up like spectral forms in some inferno. Like Naples, Colorado Springs is the paradise of the tourist, offering a new excursion for every day in the season. And there are a few of these whose root does not include lovely manateo, which is also the objective point from which to fare forth on this journey above the clouds, into those mysterious realms, where he who listens, or right, may hear spoken the words, which it is not lawful for man to utter. The journey into aerial spaces opens in a defile of one of the deep canyons. The train on the one hand, clinging to the wall, all on the other one, looks down a vast precipice, at the foot of which dashes a river over gigantic boulders. The route is diversified by the little stations on the way. Many ha-ha, whose waterfall indeed laughs in the air, and is given back in a thousand ghostly echoes. The halfway house, nestling under the pinnacle rocks of Helgate, must one always pass through the portals of Hades on his way to Paradise. Strange and grotesque scenery companions the way. On the mountainside, one finds of all things, a newspaper office, where a souvenir daily paper is issued with all the news of that new world above the clouds pikes peak the ascent is very steep in places the verdure of the foothills vanishes. The trees cease to invade this upper air, and only the dwarfed Aspen chivers in the breeze as it clings to some barren rock. new Vista's open. The world of day and daylight duties is left behind.

Gaunt, spectral rocks and uncanny shapes haunt that way. The air grows chill. Car windows are closed and warm wraps are at a premium. But this scene below, the sensation of looking down on the clouds, the view of Lake, an inland sea high in the mountains, the new sensations of the rarefied air, all these seem to initiate one into a new world. From the summit reached in a journey of 90 minutes, the view can only be described as that of unspeakable awe. An expanse of 60,000 miles is open to the gaze. To the west rise a thousand towering peaks, Snowclad, an majesty of effect, beyond power of portrayal. To the east, the vast plateaus stretch into infinite space. Below the sun shines on floating clouds clouds in all gleams of color. In the steel tower of the new summit hotel is a powerful telescope that brings Denver 80 miles distant into near and distinct view.

In Colorado Springs, 14 miles as the crow flies. The telescope view even reveals the signs on the streets so they may be plainly red. The surface of the top of Pike's Peak comprises several acres of level land thickly strewn with large blocks of rough granite of varying size. Blocks that are almost holy in a regular rectangle shape, as if prepared for some titanic scheme of architecture. The highest telegraph office in the world is located here, and the usual souvenir shop of every summer resort offers its tempting remembrances, all of which are closely associated with the genus low-side and are all a very part of the Colorado productions. A powerful searchlight was placed on Pike's Peak during the summer of 1906, adding the most picturesque features of night to all the surrounding country. Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, the cripple creek district, the deep canyons of the Cheyenne range, the silvery expanse of Broadmore, whose attractive casino is the center of evening gatherings. All these points in the Great Landscape are swept with the illumination a century has passed since Major Zebulin Montgomery Pike first discovered the shadowy crest of the mountain peak that immortalizes his name. It was on November 13th, 1806 that the attention of Major Pike and his party was arrested by what had first looked to them as a light blue cloud in the sky, toward which they marched for ten days before arriving at the base of the mountain. The story of this journey is one of the dramatic records in the National Archives. major pike and his men, left St. Louis on July 15, 1806 on his trip to the Rocky Mountains, or Mexican Mountains as he called them at the time. He pronounced the country through which he traveled to be so devoid of sustenance for human

beings that it would serve as a barrier for all time in the expansion of the United States. In vivid contrast are the conditions today. Major Pike could now make his journey from St. Louis to Pike's Peak over either of several grand trunk railways equipped with all the modern luxuries of travel, where he passed great herds of buffalo. He would now see cattle grazing in equal numbers on the prairies. The vast plains that paralyzed his imagination by their desolate aspects are now dotted with prosperous farms or ranches. The mountains that appealed to him only for their scenic grandeur have been found to be the treasure vaults of nature that were only waiting to be conquered by the hearty frontiersmen who followed him nearly half a century later. The great mountain that he declared could not be ascended by human being is now the objective point of a hundred thousand tourists annually, who climbed the height in a swift trip made in a luxurious Pullman observation car. The first attempt of the Pike Party to ascend the peak was a failure, and Major Pike expressed his opinion that no human being could ascend to its pinnacle. In 1819, honorary John C. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, sent major long and a party on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, then almost as unknown as the Himalayas. exploring party camped on the present site of Colorado Springs and on July 13th, 1819, started to ascend the peak. On the first day, they made only two miles as the ground was covered with loose, crumbling granite. On the second day, however, they succeeded. The first ascent of Pike's Peak, thus having been made on July 14, 1819. of this ascent describes the point above which the timber line disappears as one of astonishing beauty and of great interest as to its productions. The first woman to stand on the summit of Pike's Peak was Mrs. James H. Holmes in August of 1858. In his diary, General Pike thus pictured his first impressions of Colorado. The scene was one of the most sublime and beautiful inland prospects ever presented to

man.

The grey lofty mountains covered with eternal snow seemed to surround the luxuriant veil, Crowned with perennial, like a terrestrial paradise. The memory of this hero cannot but invest Colorado Springs with a certain consecration of heroism that becomes indeed part of the omens and signs that fill the air. One of the noted excursions of the Pike's Peak Region is the Temple Drive, a carriage road beginning in Manitou traversing William's Canyon and climbing its west wall. The Drive offers near views of the Temple of Isis, the cathedral of St. Peter, the narrows, and of St. Peter's Gate in the cathedral dome. It is fairly a drive in Elfland and is as distinctive a feature of Colorado Springs life as is the

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