The mountains of the Great Divide are not, as everyone knows, born treeless, though we always think of them as above the timberline with the eternal snows on their heads. They wade up through the ancient forests and plunge into canyons tangled up with watercourses and pause in little gem-like valleys and march attended by loud winds across high plateaus, but all such incidents of the lower world they leave behind them when they begin to strip for the skies: like the Holy Ones of old, they go up alone and barren of all circumstance to meet their transfiguration. (Angle of Repose, 254)