News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-05
THE MOUNTAIN TERROR !
HOW INNOCENT-LOOKING SNOW MAY
PROVE DEATH-TRAP.
A Graphic Description of Snow Slide
and What Caused It-What Party of
PrOspectOrs Found Some Time After.

High up on the side of the grim
mountain is large rock which stands
out in bold relief. Its top is not level,
but has an incline down the mountain.
Twenty men could find standing-room
on the crest of that stone
Above fifty feet or more-with not
even a bush intervening is a smaller
rock, and just in line. On the crest of
this rock man could scarcely find room
for his feet.
From the base of the larger rock to
the trail winding up the valley is a dis
lance of three-quarters of a mile, and
the ground is covered with rocks, small
pines and scraggy brushes.
So it was in September. As we look
up the mountain side on this April day
it seems like a great bank of the whitest
chalk. Pines ten feet high are hidden
under the snow, and the ugly rocks are
buried many feet deep.
The upper and smaller rocks are wear
ing huge hats of snow-a cone rising
five or six feet high. On the lower and
larger one the SHOWS of 200 days have
fallen and packed until the weight
amounts TO tons
In the valley the snow is soft and
slushy, and here and there the blades
of grass struggling for life among the
rocks are being warmed into vigor by
the sun.
'Now, watch One-three-fve-
seven men are ascending the trail, hav-
ing three pack mules with them. One
would think the warm sun must put
them in good humor, but it is not SO.
They look up the mountain-side with
fear expressed in their faces, and even
the beasts of burden show by their
actions that they labor under mental
anxiety.
Indians?
No!
A mountain thunderstorm
mol
The dreaded cyclone?
mol
When the leader of the band is almost
opposite the two rocks which have been
described, he halts and surveys them,
and it is scarcely an instant before he
has thrown up his hand to those behind.
They rightly interpret it to mean:
''Softly-softly, for your lives The
avalanche has prepared its trap for us,
and word may seal our fate p
1t is too late to retreat. IF the av-
alanche starts this will be its center,
and its wings will be a mile long.
Softly softly The men step as if
walking upon thin ice.
Now cast your eyes up the mountain
to the upper rocks. The sun has been
beating down upon the snow for hours,
and wafer appears at the base of the
cone. The south side of it has been I'M
dermined. At noon it was leaning to-
ward the valley. At o'clock the touch
of buzzard's wing would have toppled
it over. As we look bird no larger
than bluejay, weary in its flight, or
thirsting for water, alights on the cone
with a shrill chirp.
Puff 1t topples over, and the mass
falls heavily upon the lower rock. The
sun has been at work here as well, and
the bulky mass of snow is ready to
move.
Puff! puff! The air is filled with
the white powder as the mass leaps off
the rock, but the sight is blotted out by
what follows. With such s-s-s- wish-h-h
as never met your ears before-with
such a grinding, craunching, tear
ing as you never imagined, the tens of
thousands of tons of snow ON a noun
aa-,tl bushes into the valley,
R0Ol- ---=e5I- TO &..> Ir+ ~, n rl,Jo.
to roll before the white biliow. Trees
are but matches to be carried along and
ground to splinters. 1t moves faster
faster-and now with one awful crash
the mass takes on such motion that the
frozen earth is dug out in great burrows,
and there is no stop until the pillows
meet the mountain opposite.
The valley is still the valley, but it is
higher by many feet. In the June days,
as another party of prospectors come up
the trail, they may find here a hoof-
there an arm-here portion of a pack
there broken rife--here a human
body with every bone broken as if by
blows of a hammer.
The men will glance up the bare
mountain side-from rock to rock--and
they will know the story as well as if
one had survived to tell it.-Detroit
free Press