The excursion to the top of Mount Dana is a very easy one; for though
the mountain is 13,000 feet high, the ascent from the west side is so
gentle and smooth that one may ride a mule to the very summit. Across
many a busy stream, from meadow to meadow, lies your flowery way;
mountains all about you, few of them hidden by irregular foregrounds.
Gradually ascending, other mountains come in sight, peak rising above
peak with their snow and ice in endless variety of grouping and
sculpture. Now your attention is turned to the moraines, sweeping in
beautiful curves from the hollows and canyons, now to the granite waves
and pavements rising here and there above the heathy sod, polished a
thousand years ago and still shining. Towards the base of the mountain
you note the dwarfing of the trees, until at a height of about 11,000
feet you find patches of the tough, white-barked pine, pressed so flat
by the ten or twenty feet of snow piled upon them every winter for
centuries that you may walk over them as if walking on a shaggy rug.
And, if curious about such things, you may discover specimens of this
hardy tree-mountaineer not more than four feet high and about as many
inches in diameter at the ground, that are from two hundred to four
hundred years old, still holding bravely to life, making the most of
their slender summers, shaking their tasseled needles in the breeze
right cheerily, drinking the thin sunshine and maturing their fine
purple cones as if they meant to live forever.
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