Margaret MacDonald visited her Aunt Isabelle and Uncle Dr. Robert Gordon in August 1905 at the Gordon Ranch. In a letter to her mother, Margaret eloquently described a horseback ride to a mountain pass Margaret refers to as Gordon Pass in the Kootenai Mountains, present-day Holland Pass in the Swan Mountains.
The current trail, USFS trail # 42, ascends the face of the Swan Range above Holland Lake; the approximate route Margaret and her companions followed in 1905 leading to Sapphire Lakes, just over the pass. The current trail is a steep ascent, with over 25 switchbacks. Margaret aptly describes viewing the Gordon Ranch once they reach the pass.
…There are six persons in this house who feel rather stiff today; and these are Judge Maupin, Mr. and Mrs. Shawhan, Uncle Robert [Dr. Gordon] and Aunt Isabelle and myself. Yesterday morning we got up early, fixed up a lunch, saddled our horses and set out about 9.
I wish you could have seen the procession. I was on Kit, an old warrior that has spasm and is slightly unsteady in his legs but she is fine in the brush. None of the others had ever ridden on this horse except me, that was how she fell to my lot.
Judge had Ben Holland’s horse, Sailor, the best horse on the ranch – we have only 26 – Uncle Robert rode Nigger, a coal black beauty, Aunt Isabelle rode Clipper, the fastest horse on the place. Mr. Shawhan had Molly, Mrs. Shawhan had Birdie, an exceptionally sure footed animal.
You can imagine what the best of our road was like when I tell you that travelling with the fastest team, we always took an hour to go two miles. But our good road was over when we reached Holland’s Lake and for the next two miles we plunged through the brush, following an almost invisible trail. Our sunbonnets afforded us great protection, not from the sun, for it could not penetrate through such a dense thicket, but from the branches of trees that occasionally almost swept us off our saddles. Sometimes we had to lie down quite flat on the horses’ backs to miss the half fallen trees.
Nothing can describe that trail. Seldom could we go half a dozen yards without encountering fallen logs, some of them perhaps almost three feet high – not resting quite on the ground, and we rarely could leave the trail to escape.
Aunt Isabelle and I had ridden to the head of the lake last week, so I was fairly expert in saving myself from getting unnecessary bumps against trees, although sometimes the trail was barely wide enough to let a horse get through.
I told you about the Kootenai Mountains being in the back ground of the Lodge, well we had made up our minds to climb the highest spur, and drop down on the other side to have our lunch. (On the map of Montana the place we meant to cross is called Gordon’s Pass – Uncle Robert and Aunt Isabelle were the first white people to go across there. There is also a Gordon Mountain and a Gordon Lake and a Doctor Creek).
At the head of Holland’s Lake – two miles long – our climb began; we lay down on our saddles and at times we had to hold on to our horses’ manes. Every 50 yards and oftener we had to stop our horses and let them blow and now and then it was so steep we had to dismount and scramble up as best we could over rocks and sand.
The day was hot, powerfully hot as we climbed, and when we scrambled just a little way we were so breathless and tired that we were only too thankful to remount. Every time we got to the top of a ridge there was another thousand feet above us and it seemed as if we would never reach the top.
Uncle Robert pointed out the place where they had camped a few years ago, right on the face of that mountain. Darkness had overtaken them and they were forced to stay there and make a dry camp, as they call it. They had to dig holes beside the trail and sit down in them, otherwise they would have rolled down many thousand feet. How their 15 pack horses spent that night we don’t know.
There were places were [sic] there was no trail at all, where there were rocks, gravel and no foothold. However we got safely to the Pass, our horses climbed over rocks and logs on the other side and soon we had reached the lake.
The view we got from the top is quite indescribable. Range upon Range of mountains now appeared, we saw the mountains beyond the glacier and still mountains beyond that.
Mountains everywhere. Below is a vast ocean of trees, nothing but an ocean can give you any idea of the extent of the forest – the forest reserve alone in this corner of Montana covers 52 million acres and I think there are two other forest reserves in this State.
We could see six lakes, they looked like little ponds and in the distance was a small yellow spot which we knew was the meadow beside the Lodge. As soon as we reached the water’s edge, we made our lunch, it was then after one o’clock. I tell you we were a thirsty crew.
We had quite a large kettle of tea and when it was done we put water on the leaves and boiled it up again, we had enough dry tea to make a second supply; but we were afraid of being storm stayed and resolved to save it. The most energetic of us walked about half a mile to see where the lake went to, and the view was perfectly glorious.
This lake, although it appeared low to us is thousands of feet up in the mountains and is caused by the snow melting. We saw another lake too and followed both of them for a considerable distance.
At 3 o’clock we started on our homeward way, and wonderful to tell, our horses managed to take us up to the top of the pass again. If only you could have a picture of that trail you would marvel that any animal or human being could follow it. We took a few snapshots at the lake and at the top of the Pass and I know we are all sights.
Ben Holland declares Gordon’s pass is 14,000 feet high, Aunt Isabelle thinks it is just 12,000, so I can’t tell you for sure about the height of the mountain. (They miscalculated the elevation of the pass; the correct elevation is 7450’) The judge had only to dismount once, his horse being the best; but we had to walk or slide down all the way. The trail zig zags, zig zags, back and fore and even then is as steep as the side of the house.
There is only one thing about those horses – they never run over you when you are leading them. Often I would have gone headlong had I not a grip of the bridle, and once when I did sit down rather suddenly the horse stopped dead still until I had picked myself up.
We had to rest every now and then for the sake of our knees and once we rested by a huckleberry patch. How good those huckleberries were!
We got home at 7 o’clock, much to the amazement of the Hollands who could hardly believe that we had done the trip in that time. From Holland’s Creek home we had whooped all the way, galloping as hard as we could, so everybody on the ranch was out to see our triumphal procession.
And as we closed over our eyes for grace at dinner, we were indeed thankful to be home safe and sound after such a perilous journey.
Reader Comments(0)