Deer, elk, antelope and mountain sheep climb the mountains, and very frequently find their way into Elk Park or Gibbon Meadow.  This is an exceptionally desirable wintering ground, because it is surrounded by hills and mountains which keep off the worst of the winds, and there is, moreover, a perpetual spring of pure water.  The meadow is probably the prettiest spot in the entire park.  There is less of the awful and more of the picturesque than can be found elsewhere, and it is, in many respects, an oasis in a vast and somewhat dreary expanse of land.

Golden Gate is another of the exquisite spots every visitor to Yellowstone Park seeks and finds.  To reach the Golden Gate one must be a great climber, for it is high up, and the road to it is built along the edge of a cliff, which, in places, seems to be absolutely perpendicular.  The gate is, however, worth reaching, and one is not surprised to hear that as much as $14,000 were spent in cutting out a single mile of the road to it through the rock.

Leaving the Golden Gate, and continuing the tour of inspection, a valley of large dimensions is seen.  The contrast between the rich green of almost faultless verdure, and the dreariness of the rocks left behind, is striking.  It would seem as though nature had built up an immense barrier between the weird and the natural, so that the one could not affect the other.  The Bible speaks of the intense comfort of the shade of a great rock in a dry and thirsty land.  A sensation of equal, if not greater, relief is experienced in Yellowstone Park when one leaves the grand, death-like desolation around the Hot Springs, and encounters the exquisite beauty of shrub land and timber but a few paces away.  The groves of trees are in themselves sources of great delight, and also of immense wealth.  Fortunately, they will be preserved in perpetuity for the American people.  The lumber king cannot get here.  His ravages must be confined to other regions.

The valley into which the tourist has entered takes its name from the Swan Lake, a very delightful inland mountain scene.  The lake is about two miles from Golden Gate.  It is not a very large body of water, but its rippling surface extracts expressions of admiration from all who behold it.  It has been described as a demure looking sheet of water, and there is something about the appearance of the lake which seems to justify the peculiar definition.  The canon forming the valley is like everything else in Yellowstone Park—­a little out of the ordinary.  On the one side there are lofty mountains, with eminences and peaks of various formation and height, while in the distance the great Electric Peak can be easily seen.  We have already spoken of Yellowstone Park as being about 10,000 feet above the sea level.  Electric Peak, well described as the sentinel of the park, is more than 11,000 feet high.  Viewed from a distance, or along the line of the valley, it is calculated to excite both admiration and awe.