Isabella Bird: A Lady's Ride Through the Rockies

Isabella Bird took the train to Greeley, a settlement on the Plains she had been advised to make her "starting point for the mountains." She found it called the Greeley Temperance Colony, founded lately by "an industrious class of emigrants from the East." The town had begun only in 1869, as the Union Colony of Colorado under Nathan C. Meeker. From here she set off for the mountains.

Location precision: The pin marks Greeley as a whole; the letter does not name the tavern where she stayed.

Bird reached Fort Collins by wagon from Greeley, leaving at 10 and arriving at 4:30, "sick and dizzy with the heat of the sun." She was in no mood to like the place: once a military post, it was now a few frame buildings. The town had been founded as a US Army outpost in 1864. It returns in her story later: Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent, her guide on Longs Peak, was shot outside Evans's ranch-house on 19 June 1874 and died of the wound in Fort Collins.

Location precision: The pin marks the modern city; the letter describes only a few frame buildings.

Estes Park became Bird's home in the mountains. Griff Evans ran a guest ranch here, and when she arrived in 1873 he already had nine men and women as guests. Rocky Mountain Jim's cabin stood in the entrance gulch, four miles off. "This is a glorious region, and the air and life are intoxicating," she wrote; she lived mainly out of doors and on horseback.

Location precision: The pin marks the town of Estes Park; Evans's ranch itself is not pinned.

Longs Peak, 14,700 feet high, "blocks up one end of Estes Park," and Bird climbed it with Rocky Mountain Jim as guide and two others. The descent was the hard part, over slopes "perilous from rolling stones," with Jim dragging her along "with a patience and skill" and a determination that never failed. She was not the first woman up: Addie Alexander had reached the summit in 1871.

Visitor guidance: A hard high-altitude climb; check conditions with the park before you go.

Colorado Springs was "the goal of my journey of 150 miles," and Bird put on a long skirt to ride in sidewise. She was not charmed: "A queer embryo-looking place it is, out on the bare Plains," though she granted that it was rising and had some big hotels. Her verdict was blunt: no place could be more unattractive than Colorado Springs, "from its utter treelessness."

Location precision: The pin marks the modern city; the letter names no particular building.

The next day Bird wrote from the Great Gorge of the Manitou, "a highly picturesque place, with several springs." Around it lay the Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Pike's Peak, Monument Park and the Ute Pass, and in summer thousands came to drink the waters. The town of Manitou Springs grew up around those natural mineral springs.

Location precision: The letter names the gorge, not a spot; the pin marks the town of Manitou Springs.

Visitor guidance: The mineral springs are in the town, with the Garden of the Gods close by.