In the context of this artwork, explore the Idaho Springs of the To the Rocky Mountains.

Upon their return to Denver, Bierstadt, still looking for a mountain subject, was referred to William N. Byers, founder and editor of the Rocky Mountain News, who considered himself "something of a mountain tramp". Byers knew the Chicago Lakes would impress the artist. Bierstadt separated from his expedition, and he and Byers rode a buckboard up to Idaho Springs, located 30 miles west of Denver. Byers would later write, "There we secured saddle animals and two or three donkeys to pack our bedding, provisions, paint-boxes, etc." Despite the rainy weather, they headed south from Idaho Springs further into the mountains, with Byers in the lead and Bierstadt behind the pack animals. They followed Chicago Creek through "dense forest" until they emerged into a "beautiful little flower-decked meadow". Byers rode out of Bierstadt's line of sight so that he could witness the artist's first impression of the valley.
Bierstadt emerged leisurely. His enthusiasm was badly dampened, but the moment he caught the view, fatigue and hunger were forgotten. He said nothing, but his face was a picture of intense life and excitement. Taking in the view for a moment, he slid off his mule, glanced quickly to see where the jack was that carried his paint outfit, walked sideways to it and began fumbling at the lash-ropes, all the time keeping his eyes on the scene up the valley.
Bierstadt told his guide, "I must get a study in colors; it will take me fifteen minutes!" The weather, however deteriorated, was impressive, and the view in front of Bierstadt included storm clouds drifting low over "sharp pinnacles and spires and masses of broken granite". Rays of sunlight broke through the cloud, and flowing down a mountain were "ribbons of water from the last hard shower [ ... ] reflecting back the sunshine." Byers patiently waited for his guest to complete his sketch. When finished, Bierstadt asked, "There, was I more than fifteen minutes?" to which Byers replied, "Yes, you were at work forty-five minutes by the watch!"After continuing to Lower Chicago Lake, Bierstadt crossed the valley to sketch the landscape from a different vantage. Over the duration of their stay, Bierstadt "worked industriously [ ... ], making many sketches in pencil and studies in oil—these latter in order to get the colors and shade." One of these studies, Mountain Lake, was painted on the periphery of Lower Chicago Lake, featuring Mount Spalding. William Henry Jackson would take a photograph of Lower Chicago Lake ten years later in nearly the same spot that Bierstadt painted his study.Byers took Bierstadt to Upper Chicago Lake before climbing "to the crest of the rim of the upper basin and to Summit Lake, and beyond that to the summit of the highest snowy peak in the group", which is both "the subject [in the painting]" and "is visible from the streets of Denver". The peak was unnamed at the time, so Bierstadt christened it "Mount Rosalie", after Ludlow's wife. Byers believed Bierstadt had named the peak "after one of the loftiest summits of the Alps".Bierstadt and Byers's return trip to Denver was "uneventful" and Fitz Hugh Ludlow would get to look at Bierstadt's studies, which he later described as "some of the finest color studies he made along that [mountain] chain—among others an exquisite series of lakes on a mountain to whose very top he ascended with his color-box, a height of over 15,000 feet, or considerably taller than Mont Blanc." Ludlow marveled at the landscape sketches and their colors and especially of the main peak that Bierstadt had named:That glorious roseate mountain stood nameless among the peaks in its virgin vail of snew [sic, "veil of snow"]; so Bierstadt, by right of first portrayal, baptized it after one far away from our sides, but very near and dear to our hearts—a gentle nature who had followed us clear to the verge of our Overland wanderings at Atchison, and parted from us bravely lest she should make our purpose fainter by seeming moved. Henceforth that shining peak is Monte Rosa.
On 23 June 1863, Bierstadt and Byers left Denver to continue their journey to California. The expedition's two other men would meet up with them at a later point.
buckboard Mont Blanc Idaho Springs Fitz Hugh Ludlow right left Summit Lake William Henry Jackson William N. Byers Rocky Mountain News