Willmar tribune., 1899-02-15
Among the Rockies.

Among the Rockies.
Eighth ofa series Of letters. written
bY the editor while on his trip zin the
r West: ....* zss :Rss.
3. ASPEN, CoL.,.J an 81 ''99. 5.
We have received letters from home
from friends who have lexpres sed envy
3 because we are in a place where there
} is summer weather and green grass.
They are badly mistaken. There is
more snow on the ground here than we
generally see in MINES ota Indeed
it has been showing here every day
since we arrived with but few sexcep-
tions. AS there is butzyery@ little
windy weather here in town dowH. be-
!: tween the mountains the snow does
/, not drift. About a week ago. We had
4 "a snow fall Of about 10 inches during
a night and SO quietly did it fall lat
= the floor6of the porch outside ours door
: was not covered. Last night however
was an exception, as we were visited
by blizzard: The wind howled / and
rushed the snow in a manner to make
me feel home. sick. It rarely gets very
cold here, however, the mean tempera-
! ture Of january not being much below
25 degrees above zero. The late heavy
: snowfall upon the crust Of the old
snow has made travel among the
mountains extremely hazardous on ac-
count Of the frequency Of snow slides.
Railroad traffic is much hampered by
. these .av alanches, which cover the
r track when in their paths with enorln-
!, Gus masses Of fs-elose packed snow.
About 800 feet of snow sheds, erected
for the purpose OF protecting the
tracks in such cases, were crushed in
4sby the force of a slide on the Midland
, road between here and Denver. the
other day. - ..-.- -
The work of a mining prospector is
simply form of legitim ate gambling.
He may strike it rich and he may not
be rewarded for years Of patient and
diligent toll by finding anything worth
digging. While thorough knowledge
of geology and the various rock form
ations may be useful to a prospector,
the deposits of ore are SO frealy that
:, the, best informed engineer and old
miner is at 8 loss to account for it at
times. One Of the best posted mining
experts OF this. camp was sent. to. in
vest;gate the Cripple Creek district
when the discoy ct gold was de
there, as one q the mining corpora
s tions here had an option on the pro-
party what is now the Independence
mine for $50, 900, but he reported it as
worthless. He declared that the gold
discovered was only a surface deposit
and the formation Of rock was such as
would preclude all possibility Of any
paying operations. The mine is now
paying millions.
In the Aspen mine not long ago n
foreman took a notion to DRIFT into the
shole rock, which is always supposed
TO be hopelessly barren but when in
about 100 feet struck a fine body of
rich ore. ~
# An old prospector had found some
rich drift pieces OF ore which had
.@brokch Off from some outcropping Of
ore on the side of the mountain and
been washed DOWN and had been
looking for the place it came from for
a long time. A tenderfoot came along
one day aud innocently asked, "Say,
Mister; where is .a.good place to pros
=spect, = and the miner pointed to a tree
some distance away and said 'sthere. =
q The tenderfoot went to the place in
dicated and and began to dig, and the
miner chuckled at his childish faith.
The tenderfoot chuckled a little later,
however, when he found the ore the
miner had been looking for. He sold
his claim for $4,000 and returned east
three weeks after his arrival 1.
The miner who told the above yarns
stated that the hills around this camp
have hardly been scratched. He said
that if the people who rush off to
#Klondike and other new excitements
would stay light in Go dorado and $ex-
pend the same energy and money their
chances for success would be Eve to
One Of what they are il 9 big rush.
s.5
Ike1In1are, n p
Editor TRIBUNE: 5s,.5ss