Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-03-30
THE CHTLKOOT PASS.
MRS. kELSEY,S RIDE ACROSS IN THE
AERIAL TRAMWAY.

The First Woman to Make tho Trip-She
Wss Fastened Into = Small Box and
Made the Journey In Ninety Minutes.
Her Graphic Description.
Transportation to the Klondike II
rev~olutionized. The dreaded Chilkoot
pass is spanned by an aerial tramway.
A Yankee woman has crossed In an
hour and a half the mountain defle
which has hitherto tried mems souls
and bodies in a struggle Of days and
weeks. Never before was such pioneer
enterprise displayed in establishing a
means Of transportation over almost i'm
passable heights.
The Chilkoot aerial tramway was
completed only a few weeks ago. Tow.
ers are stationed at a distance from each
other of several hundred feet. From
one to the other of these are strung ca.
bles from which hang the cars, operated
by q separate set of cables. The tram
way will be operated III two sections
one four miles long and the other Of
nearly the same length. The first Sec
ton begins eight miles from the new
wharf at Dyea, where passengers and
goods are landed from the steamers.
From the wharf to the mouth Of the
mountain canyon, where the first Sec
ton begins, goods are to be conveyed by
a narrow gauge railway. The rate
charged is 10 cents a pound, or $500 q
ton, from Skagguay to Lake Lindeman,
a distance Of ~ miles.
Following is an extract from a letter
written by Mrs. Martha A. Kelsey OF
Dorchester, Mass, to Mrs. Elizabeth H.
Brown Of Portland, Me-, postmarked
Dyea, Feb. L:
LAKE LINDEMAN, Alaska, Jan. 81.
MY DEAR ELlZA-Here / am on the border
Of the land of hope, but, oh, what an expert
ence ! have passed through in coming over
Chilkoot pass. ! was swung in midair from
point to point over rocky chasms and almost
tossed from peak to peak.
For, you see, l was the first woman to be
carried over the new aerial tramway. Al
! first l thought it would be SO nice when the
Kind hearted managers of the line proposed to
carry me over the pass instead Of my having
to walk over it with my husband and the other
men Of the party. 1t would only take an hour
or two in this way, instead of one or Two days
Of the hardest kind Of climbing. 30 they
tucked me into a little box, only 2 feet wide
and 8 feet long and about 2 feet deep. 1t was
made only for carrying freight, they said. sc
they tied and strapped and bound me in as
they would a load of groceries, and ! wondered
| why they were so careful about it, for ! told
them l would not jump out. But they just
laughed and told me to hang on and not be
afraid. Then they hoisted me up ON to some
thing like an overhead trolley wire. The ca
bles attached to the box I was in started with
q creaking, grinding sound. Straight up the
mountain side and into the dark canyon ]
went az If l were a bird. Higher and higher
up from the ground the cables carried me, and
/ was afraid to look down, SO kept my eyes
fixed on the heights above and beyond.
All at once, directly in front Of me, doomed
a great, black cliff, and l was dashed straight
at 1t. ! closed my eyes and shrieked as l never
did before in my life, when, 10, the cliff was
gone! / had been whirled just around its edge
and then l felt the awfulest sensation, for
was suspended over q great chasm, hundred
Of feet above a glacial torrent, and it appeared
to be a mile from one side Of the canyon K
another, where the spiderlike cable lines wer,
suspended from towers. 1t seemed to me
hung for hours over thst yawning chasm, bu'
they told me afterward it could not have beer
more than a minute and a half, for the span
Is they call 1t, at that point is only 1900 feet
But mathematics don't count in such a situa
tion. You just have a horrible, sickening feal
of such terrible heights and distances in mid
air.
The rest of the way was straight up til,
rocky pass, covered with snow and never melt
ing glacial ice. The air was bitterly cold as il
came in a perfect gale down between tn,
mountain walls, and 1t seemed as il the nortl
pole must be right ahead of me.
Then came the intense relief as the summit
| Of the pass was reached. The threatenin,
walls Of rock fattened out into a billy plain
and the car slowed up. 1t was the end Of tn,
line, and a group Of rough but kind hearted
men cheered me rs the car was lowered to tn
ground and l was u%nstrapped and taken out
They told me how brave / was to take the frs
trip Of any woman. In fact, they said that n,
man had before this been over the whole lin,
at one time. I had crossed the dreadful Chill
koot pass in an hour and q halt, while the pool
miners struggle for days and weeks along it,
awful course. ! tremble to think of Frank
my dear husband, and his companions, wht
are at this moment somewhere in that mas
Of frowning rock walls and snow gorges, blu
l pray heaven they may arrive here at thu
summit safely. The miners here are making
me as comfortable as possible in a log houst
near the sawmill on Lake Lindeman till my
husband and his party arrive.
I am sending this letter back in the way
came in a package over the tramway, and the,
say it will be one Of the quickest letters evel
sent out Of this faroff, lonesome country.
MARTHA.
ST. Louis Republic.