Mid Week At Work: Today In Wyoming's History: August 29, 1870. Mt. Washburn ascended.

From Our Companion Blog, Today In Wyoming's History:

Today In Wyoming's History: August 29:  1870  Mount Washburn in Yellowstone National Park ascended for the first time by members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition.   The scientific/topographic expedition was under a military escort lead by U.S. Army Cavalry officer, Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, who made this report:

The view from the summit is beyond all adequate description.  Looking northward from the base of the mountain the great plateau  stretches away to the front and left with its innumerable groves and  sparkling waters, a variegated landscape of surpassing beauty, bounded  on its extreme verge by the cañons of the Yellowstone. The pure  atmosphere of this lofty region causes every outline of tree, rock or lakelet to be visible with wonderful distinctness, and objects twenty  miles away appear as if very near at hand. Still further to the left the snowy ranges on the headwaters of Gardiner's river stretch away to the  westward, joining those on the head of the Gallatin, and forming, with  the Elephant's Back, a continuous chain, bending constantly to the  south, the rim of the Yellowstone Basin. On the verge of the horizon  appear, like mole hills in the distance, and far below, the white  summits above the Gallatin Valley. These never thaw during the summer  months, though several thousand feet lower than where we now stand upon  the bare granite and no snow visible near, save n the depths of shaded  ravines. Beyond the plateau to the right front is the deep valley of the East Fork bearing away eastward, and still beyond, ragged volcanic  peaks, heaped in inextricable confusion, as far as the limit of vision  extends. On the east, close beneath our feet, yawns the immense gulf of  the Grand Cañon, cutting away the bases of two mountains in forcing a  passage through the range. Its yellow walls divide the landscape nearly  in a straight line to the junction of Warm Spring Creek below. The  ragged edges of the chasm are from two hundred to five hundred yards  apart, its depth so profound that the river bed is no where visible. No  sound reaches the ear from the bottom of the abyss; the sun's rays are  reflected on the further wall and then lost in the darkness below. The  mind struggles and then falls back upon itself despairing in the effort  to grasp by a single thought the idea of its immensity. Beyond, a gentle declivity, sloping from the summit of the broken range, extends to the  limit of vision, a wilderness of unbroken pine forest.

William Henry Jackson on Mount Washburn a few years later.

If reading this description, and looking at this photo, makes you think that this work was considerably more exciting, interesting and valuable than your own today. . . well it probably indeed really was.