The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1885-05-23
THE SNOW SLIDE.
One of the Terrors That Attend Winter
Life in the Mountains.

Life in the Mountains.
High up on the side of the grim
mountain is large rock which stands
out in bold relief. Its top is not level,
but it has an incline down the noun
tain. Twenty men could find standing
room on the crest of that stone. Above
fifty feet or more-with not even a
bush intervening, is 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
distance 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 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 wearing huge hats of
snow-a cone rising five or six feet high.
On the lower and larger one the SHOWS
of two hundred 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-fye-
seven men are ascending the trail,
having 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
No!
The dreaded cycloneP
No!
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 be-
hind. 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.'
1t is too late to retreat. If the ava
lanche starts this will be its center, and
its wings will be 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 water appears at the base of the
cone. The south side of it has been un-
dermined. At noon it was leaning
towards the valley. At one o'clock the
touch of buzzarFs wing would have
toppled it over. AS we look bird no
larger than bluejay. weary in its fight,
or thirsting for water, alights on the
cone with 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 filed with the
white powder as the mass leaps off the
rock, but the sight is blotted out by
what follows. With such s-s-wish-h-h
80 AAS'SA nv yVuA Soio oClOIc-Wltu
such a grinding, craunching. tearing as
you never imagined, the tens of thou
sands of tons of snow on a mountain
side two miles long breaks loose and
rushes into the valley.
Rocks weighing tons are but marbles
to roll before the white billow. Trees
are but matches to be carried along and
ground to splinters. It 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 hoof-
there AN arm-here portion of a pack
there broken rifie-here 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.