Knocking Round the Rockies

Ernest Ingersoll first came to the West in 1874 as a member of Ferdinand V. Hayden's Geological Survey of the Territories. His lively recollections of the two summers he spent with survey teams in the Rocky Mountain West are narrated in Knocking Round the Rockies. It is at once a guidebook to the geography, nature, history, and culture of the Rocky Mountains and a practical primer of how-to-do-it information for "future wanderers."

Contemporary readers, aided by any good map, will easily be able to follow the course of Ingersoll's journeys. His party left Denver through the Berthoud Pass to Hot Sulphur Springs and Grand Lake, traveled south to Leadville, the San Juans, and the Los Pinos Agency of the Ute tribe, and ended with the climactic discovery of the ruins at Mesa Verde.

James Pickering's introduction traces the life of Ernest Ingersoll and places him in the context of nature writing and western surveys of the late nineteenth century. From descriptions of western scenery and customs of the Ute Indians to discussions on intransigent mules and such western characters as "Mountain Harry" Yount, Ingersoll's accounts will make good reading for anyone interested in the days of exploration in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West.