The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-26
GOLD CAVE IN WASHINGTON.
SEVENTY THOUSAND TONS OF DIRT
IN ACTUAL SIGHT.

Floor aud Roof Assay $50 to the
Ton-Richer Than GOIcOnda Is
This Hole in the Side of the Cas-
cade MountaIns-It Is said Over
1000, 900 Worth of Rich Pay Dirt
Can Be Seen.
Copyrighted by the 8 S. Mcclure Co.
Pasco Wash, Oct. 3l-Have you, gen.
tie reader, ever walked six miles over a
skid road in the Cascade range of noun
tains in the state Of Washington? If you
have I am sure it must have been long
| years ago. because otherwise you would
not be gentle but wild, for walking over
a skid road ia the Cascades has a tenden-
| cy to make a sucking dove wilder than
! hen with fourteen chickens.
Do you know what skid road Is? Not
an ordinary skid road, but a Cascade
range skid road No? Well, let me ex-
plain. a skid, by the dictionary definition,
is a log or timber laid lengthwise on which
heavy articles may be transported Tor
''skidded" in the vernacular), and a skid
| road should therefore be one somewhat
/ similar in effect to an ordinary railroad:
! but Cascade range skid roads are not con-
structed according to other plans and the
! logs are laid crossways of the road and
at intervals of. say, five to six feet. The
| roadbed is unadulterated mud, and the
/ logs, from ten to twelve inches in dame
ter, sink into this, about six inches, so
that the horses dragging the usual skid
sleds. long. slender, low runnered affairs,
may step between them and keep the mud
| thoroughly soft and well churned. On
! new road that is, one made in virgin soil,
this process usually esta blishes a depth of
from ten to twelve inches of mud, and as
it rains more or less every month in the
| Western Cascades this mud never has
the water sufficiently squeezed out of 1t
TO convert ii into dust To add still further
10 the pedestrians pleasure, the sldds are
/ always kept well creased to facilitate the
I passage of the sleds, and if the walker
| can keep his feet under him. when he
most needs them there, then indeed is he
an expert. Why not ride on the sleds, you
ask? Well, If you should see one of those
sleds sliding from one side of the road to
the other and switching around like the
| cracker Of a whip, you would not ask the
question. We might have gone on horse
back, but there were no horses except
such as were otherwise engaged, so We
walked We rose l 600 feet in walking the
six miles, too, and that did not make our
task easier or our burdens lighter.
!. But we were bound for a cave of gold in
the noun Jains and who thinks of effort
with such dazzling goal before him?
ON Rock Slide.
The trail, they can any kind of a road
a trail in this country except the rail-
road, led Though such tremendous forests
as are not found anywhere in the world
except on the Pacific coast The great
trees growing so closely together that
there was not limb for hundred feet.
as straight as masts rose upward TO the
light, their enormous trunks almost max
ing a wooden we'll along the trail. Here
and there some ancient patriarch had fal-
len and on lis recumbent trunk grew
giants hundred feet in hight. Somewhere
off in the Businesses we could hear the
rush of a tumbling torrent over the great
bouldeTs and a mile above trees and tor
rents and skids and mud lowered the
gray rocked sawteeth and needles of the
Cas- AIDES, the toughest noun aims on
, earth.
We reached the Golden Tunnel Camp in
, Salmon Basin at IL oco ck, after three
hours of steady but slippery going, and
there they showed US dinner close at hand
and far up the mountain, al the head of
the basin, tiny black line across a field
of snow. which, they tod us was a part
of the trail leading TO the cave of god
itself, indistinguishable on the face OF a
, | gigantic cl IF which seemed to rise raight
up to the sky. But il was he cave of eofl
we had come 10 see, fer caves Of gold are
scarce except in books of fairy tales, and
we were not be deferred by little thing
like an impossibility, so as soon as we
had ca en- we took our alpensticks in our
, hands and began to climb For a half m lie
we followed a skid trail, til it suddenly
stopped at an ore dump and then we went
, square out upon a huge rock slide and
l picked our way carefully across fer near
, Iy a quarter of mile to tangled thicket
beyond which were more rocks and then a
field Of Snow.
Let me stop here long enough to say
that these rock sides, while ordinarily
, safe enough, are often the most serious
= danger of mountain climbing. As the name
indicates, they are slides of rock which
do not seem to come from anywhere but
! have always a great supply Of rocks OF
all sizes, as if nature had made their par
ticular location her rock dump, intending
E 10 make fill across the valley, but never
= getting further than he foot Of the noun
tain. These rocks on an incline of As de
grees, win lie quietly reposing until an un-
wary foot starts ore rolling, or a gun shot
= or even a shout, jars one from its place
and then woe be to the unlucky climber
4 who is out on the slide, for he must be
[ active indeed If he escapes bruises or a
r ! broken limb from the bou ders which come
. bouncing and jumping and flying dowr
upon him. These slides do not become m ".
ing masses as are avalanches sweeping
everything down with them; they are
merely covered with loose stones which
come rolling down by twos or threes OF
, tens or scores as the disturbance may be
= and also unlike the avalanche, they may
: occur a half dozen times day and are
therefore constant menace.
Hard Mountain Climbing.
Beyond the rock came the snow ant
there was big crevasse in it which neces
r itated a trip down the mountain to gel
= around it, and then more rock and more
n snow and we struck the real climbing
Here we stopped 10 look down the valley
upon double line of mountains cleal
cut against the sky. in places again cut
ting the white clouds like spear point!
. | and presenting a magnificent beauty o
r mountain scenery which 1 have not eeeI
exceled outside of the Cascade range.
The trail leading up from the snow wal