There is a valley near the base of Pikes Peak known since the mid-19th century as the Garden of the Gods. It is a garden not of flowers, but of rock - of kissing camels and stone toadstools and mammoth sandstone monuments tilted upward toward the Colorado sky. If these great rocks could but speak, what stories they might tell. Stories of Indians who camped there in ages past...of mountain men who paused there before entering the high country...of gold seekers who carved their names into the soft sandstone walls...of early settlers who claimed the land as their own...of later promoters who tried to make money off the natural beauty...of conservationists who sought to preserve this garden as a place forever free to the public.