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Panorama of Ute Pass

Five miles of the most sublime of Rocky Mountain scenery taken under exceptionally favorable circumstances. The Colorado Midland Railway provided a special train to get this picture. Ute Pass extends from Manitou through the mountains at the base of Pike's Peak. The narrow gorge was, the pathway down which the Indians brought their sick and infirm down to the healing springs at the base of the peak and legend declares that no matter how the tribes fought and struggled elsewhere there was never any trouble while the pilgrims were in the pass. It was sacred ground for the red men believed that the all powerful spirit of the bubbling springs would be displeased should His children fight while on their way to or from the fountains of life. Once, many ages ago, it is related, there was a clash between the braves of two tribes and while they fought the sun suddenly ceased to shine, there was a deafning peal of thunder and a blinding flash of light, a cloudburst up the gulch with a wall of water fifty feet high. The braves who fought at the bottom of the canyon were all washed away while the squaws and sick Indians who had gathered on the side of the cliff to watch the struggle were all saved. This picture was taken from the pilot of a special train running nearly fifty miles an hour down the awful grade of 225 feet to the mile around sharp curves of sixteen degrees curvature and through nine tunnels. The track winds around the precipitous sides of the gulch over a roadbed blasted out of solid rock. Below, hundreds of feet are the little stream and the wagon road over which millions of dollars of treasure were brought from Leadville in the early days. This was the famous resort of stage robbers and gold dust looters. The camera has caught all the windings and twists of the tortuous road. From the inky blackness of tunnel to the dizzy height of a spider-like bridge swung up against the rock the eye passes up the steep mountain and into the depths of the gulch. Suddenly after the trip of three miles the plains burst into view. Manitou lies at the feet of the traveler, Colorado springs is seen in the hazy distance and the smoke of another train headed up the hill is plainly seen. An entrancing feature of this film is the view of Cameron's Cone through the mouth of one of the tunnels, the rock making a black frame for a brilliant piece of mountain scenery. The trip down the hill in making this picture was one of the most hazardous feats ever attempted in the pursuit of photography. The regulation speed of trains over this stretch of track is seldom more than ten miles an hour, while in this instance the run was made at almost a mile a minute with results thrilling in the extreme.

SELIG 1902-11