How is the wilderness described in the story, The King of the Golden River?

The wilderness has lofty cliffs that gradually ascended till they catch the sunlight, which runs in sharp touches of ruddy colour, along the angular crags, and pierced, in long level rays, through their fringes of spear-like pine. Far above there are red splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightening.