The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1902-06-12
THUNDER MOUNTAIN.
Some Facts : Related by a Pros
pectOr and Claim Owner.

The RUSH to the Thunder Mountain
gold fields, Idaho, is ION" for this Sum
mer. Thousands of eager-eyed gold-hunt-
ers, furnishing for n look Mt the yellow
stuff that the Caswell boys, according to
the boom reports from the district, are
picking up by the hatful, thrOng all the
little trail stations around the new fields
Some of them are tough, weather-worn
miners; but hundreds are green and ten
der fortune-hunters, who know nothing
about gold or gold bearing rocks, or plac-
ers, or gulches. or bobcats, or bears, or
starvation in the lonely wilderness, or the
desperate, terrible and hazardous life of
boom mining camp filed with the most
reckless devils that roam the earth in
their search for gold.
As soon as the 30 or % feet of snow
on the mountain summit turns to lce-cold
slush the stampede will begin. Haggard
men in struggling groups will push and
wallow through this slush and press on
into the tangled wilderness beyond. Those
who succeed in Drawing the terrors
of the passes will find themselves in
a rough mountain country. wilder than
Alaska and the Klondike. with no food.
except what each man carried in on his
back, no gold to be picked up in placers
only bleak mountain peaks and slopes
that will require the employment of ex-
pensive machines to rob them of their
well-gnarded treasures.
1t will be ike a keno game. One man
will yell Keno" and all the rest will
mutter, "Oh. HI" Ont of the thousands
who go into the Thunder Mountain
gold fields. one only will succeed where
900 will struggle back beaten and broken
hearted. Thunder Mountain is bound to
prove one of the greatest diSappointments
that goid-hunterS ever broke their hearts
over 1t is what we call in the West
tough proposition" 1t is not a poor
mans country, as many of the boomers
have pretended. A poor man is doomed
to failure and Disaster To succeed in
the Thunder Mountain field requires
bountiful stock of provisions. machinery
to work the ore. and an awful amount of
grit to get there and stay there
No one who has not tramped along the
so-called trails of that portion of Idaho
can have any idea of the periIs and hard
ships that await him. The first thing
YOU have to conquer is the snow-that
is, if you are going to be one of the
'sooners' and rush into the mountains
before the middle of June. A friend and
myself who tried it walowed in snow
ceeded in getting over the SUBMITS alive.
1t takes harder constitution and more
nerve than | have to try this sort of
thing second time. Then you have to
carry on your back enough provisions to
live on during your whole stay in the
fields. If You are rich, you could take
IN lot of pack horses with supplies;
but with the desperate life and starva.
ton conditions ut Thunder Mountain you
Il how 90 s,tf i'll
hand to guard it, after the small stock
OF provisions of the other goId-hmters
had run ont. They would at once begin
to draw on you, and you would have to
give up. shell out" or fight II you
tried to take enough provisions in on your
back, you would probably get down with
mountain fever long before you reached
Thunder Mountain = having nothing to
drink but melted snOw-and he laid up
for weeks in some pass about as remote
from civilization rs the North Pole. Then
you would find MI the so-called free gold
lands at Thunder Mountain taken up and
staked off. and you would have to locate
Il claim somewhere else and come back
East for machinery to run the thing.
Now and then you hear of Il pack
horse train going in to Thunder Mountain
and fancy that there is enough to eat
there. You would discover your error in
aDout Two minutes a1tfr reaching camp.
friend has just written met took
one month for the letter to get here
that 50-pound sack of -four is worth
S3I; other provisions of any kind 81 n
pound. These prices are purely theoret-
zeal, as there is no -four there and no
provisions; the theory is based upon the
idea that somebody is going to bring some
in some day.
Some years ago. when friend and
hrst broke through the passes. there was
plenty of game, and you could find deer
every hundred yards in any direction.
and they were so tame you were aSham-
I'd to kill them. Now the hunters have
iriven them into the deep canyons. so
that the prOspectOrs cannot count upon
living off venison. After the railway and
wagon road reach Thunder Mountain
things will be different; but certainly for
his year and next the hardships and suf-
ferings will be far more terrible than
those experienced by the desperate gold
seekers who went into the Klondike re-
yiOn through the Alaskan passes The
country is far wilder than the Klondike. |
FAR more inaccessible, and with less nat
lral food in the shape of game and ber-
res. In Winter the temperature drops
% 60 degrees below zero.
My own experience may serve as an
illustration of the hardships to be ex-
Dected, although l went into the region
Ear better equipped than the run of pros
DectOrs. My friend and l went 500 miles |
icross the mountains to get there. After
passing through terrible country of gorg-
IS and mountain passes, and climbing |